Mrs. Kennedy was a little bewildered at having her time-honoured maxim treated imaginatively.
"Even then," she said, after an instant, "some one can come behind and give you a shove; or the Almighty can interfere."
Angelica, at the zenith of her triumph, invited guest of Mrs. Russell, publicly acknowledged as Eddie’s betrothed, smiled.
"He won’t!" she said. "He’s on my side!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN
So behold Angelica returning to Buena Vista in this quite new rôle, coming up from the station in a taxi, if you please. She was thinking all the way of her last visit, of that bedraggled and desperate creature that had been herself.
"I’ve won!" she said. "I’ve won! All alone—everything against me—and still I’ve won!"
She stepped out, and paid the driver with perfect assurance. She wasn’t really poor now, and she could, with perfect propriety, afford a cab now and then.
She knew that she was late, but she was conscious of blamelessness. There had been a difficult customer who couldn’t be left, and who, properly handled, had bought two outrageously dear hats. She was, in fact, very proud of being a business woman who couldn’t help being late.
She had expected that the family would be at dinner, for she couldn’t quite believe that they would wait for her. She didn’t expect anything more than decent tolerance; she didn’t in the least resent the trace of condescension in Mrs. Russell’s manner. She couldn’t fool Mrs. Russell with conservative Scottish grandparents or an old-fashioned mother. Mrs. Russell knew.