"Tell him that I am not——" she paused and glanced out of the window. The quick impulse was gone. "Tell him—to come up," she finished.
When the page disappeared she glanced about the room, then hurried to the door to recall him, but he had turned the corner into the corridor outside, and the message was on its way to a lower floor.
She paused, irresolute, then went in again, closing the outside door behind her. What had she done? A message of welcome to Cortland Bent, the one person in the world she had promised herself she should never see again; her husband's enemy, her own because he was her husband's; her own, too, because he had given her pride a wound from which it had not yet recovered! What should she do? She moved toward the door leading to her dressing room—to pause again.
What did it matter after all? Jeff wouldn't care. She laughed. Why should he? He could afford to be generous with the man who had lost the fortune he now possessed. He had, too, an implicit confidence in her own judgment, and never since they had been married had he questioned an action or motive of hers. As for herself—that was another matter. She tossed her head and looked at herself in her mirror. Should she not even welcome the opportunity to show Bent how small a place he now held in her memory? The mirror told her she was handsome, but she still lingered before it, arranging her hair, when her visitor was announced.
He stood with his hands behind his back studying the portrait over the fireplace, turning at the sound of her voice.
"It's very nice of you to see me," he said slowly. "How long have you been here?"
"A few weeks only. Won't you sit down?"
A warm color had come to her checks as she realized that he was carefully scrutinizing her from head to heel.
"Of course we're very much honored——" she began.
"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you," he broke in warmly. "I was tempted to write you a dozen times, but your engagement and marriage to Wray and"—he paused—"the trouble about the mine seemed to make it difficult, somehow."