"Camilla is an enchanting creature, a dear, sweet, womanly soul, but you can never make a lasting impression on her," she had said. "However hardly she is flung about, however sharply she may seem dented, she is bound to come smoothly to the surface again, and show no trace of what has happened."
She was being sharply dented now. In this hour of fatigue and disappointment memory forced open the door she had held closed so resolutely all the day.
On the morrow her visit to Yelverton would end, and she must go back to town—back to the practically impossible task of clearing her daily path of one or two hideous obstacles.
There were some things awaiting that had to be met that sent a shiver of dread through her now as she recalled them. She opened her eyes after a time and sat watching Haverford's tall, long-coated figure pass the window of the waiting-room every now and then.
"And with a scratch of a pen," she said to herself wearily, "he could put all my difficulties straight. Why does he not speak? Sometimes I feel he cares for me more than I have ever been cared for before, then the next moment he chills me; he almost frightens me. He is so reserved, so deliberate. I believe he must be hard. Of course"—her lip curled—"he is cautious, and no doubt he is mean; he is far too rich to be generous."
She repressed her tears with difficulty. She was so truly sorry for herself. Other women (so she pondered) had such ease in their lives; she knew of no other woman who was so lonely as herself, so burdened, so troubled.
She got up impatiently, and, pulling a chair forward, sat down and stared into the fire with wet eyelashes. Her face hardened a little as her mind drifted away from fretful generalities to the practical outlook, to the immutable fact that two and two made four for most people, but in her case required six to be satisfactorily disposed of. Little by little, however, she began, as was her custom, to make a possible pathway for herself out of the tangle of vexatious care that awaited her.
She was amazingly skilful in this sort of thing; no matter how hopelessly involved the future might seem, she usually found some loophole of escape, some tiny thread which, with the ingenuous ingenuity of a child, would be weaved, before she had done with it, into something substantial, on which she could just stand comfortably for a little time.
Rupert Haverford paused by the window about this time. He watched her awhile as she sat thinking so intently, then flung away his cigar and opened the door.
"The train is just due," he said, "and the sea fog is creeping its way here. I shall be very glad to get you home, Mrs. Lancing; I am sure you must be thoroughly tired out. If I might prescribe for you," he added, as they passed out on to the platform, "I should suggest dinner in your room to-night and early bed."