Betty returned to Cadogan Place, conscious of an extraordinary buoyancy of spirit, of a gaiety even which made her demure maid stare. "Getting out o' this dirty old house makes you laugh, ma'am," she remarked.
"Yes," said Betty; "it makes me laugh."
When the maid left the room, Betty sat down by the window which overlooked the gardens below, the gardens typical of such houses as the one she was leaving—conventionally laid out, fenced with sharply pointed iron palings, pleasure grounds wherein no person, out of their teens, took any pleasure whatever. Betty could see two children and a gaunt governess walking primly along one of the broad well-swept paths. One child, a nice fat little girl, escaped from bondage, hiding behind a bush. Betty could hear the voice of the governess calling to her, and then a sharp rebuke, as the truant came toddling back to the path.
"If my baby had lived——"
She put the baby out of her thoughts. If it had lived, she and the child might have remained inside iron palings.
Then, very deliberately, she faced the future. Her money was settled on herself. Mark and she could live where they pleased, as they pleased. If one place proved disagreeable they could move on and on; the world was wide.
She smiled happily and contentedly. Many women, at such a moment, would have been distraught by anxiety and fear. But Betty was gladder than she had ever felt before. Indeed, she was triumphant. She told herself that every instinct she had tried to suppress was vindicated gloriously. To such a proud, refined woman the memory that she had flung herself at Mark's head had been always a dire humiliation, the more so because she had never measured the width and depth of his feeling for her. She repeated the phrase, "He has always loved me," again and again, letting the sweetness of it linger upon her lips.
The inevitable sacrifice—the fact which Mark plainly pointed out that she, the woman, had more to lose than the man—was acclaimed. Hitherto, love—whether love of niece for uncle, of friend for friend, of wife for husband—had exacted nothing from her. She had been extremely generous with her money, giving away far more than the tithe. But the signing of cheques had not included one genuine act of self-denial on her part. Whatever she had done had been accomplished without effort, without pain.
Her thoughts turned from herself to Mark. Immediately the smile faded from her face.
How cruelly he had suffered! And with what a pleasant smile, with how gay a laugh he had confronted ill-health, ill-fortune, and disappointment!