CHAPTER VII
A TRAGIC COIL
I
Mary, breakfasting late and at leisure, before her ride at eleven, had propped the Morning Post against the coffee-pot. Milly was arranging roses in a blue bowl.
“I’m miserable!” Mary suddenly proclaimed. She had let her eyes stray to the column devoted to marriage and the giving in marriage, and at last she had flung the paper away from her.
“Get on with your breakfast,” said the practical Milly. “I’ve really no patience with you.”
Mary rose from the table with big trouble in her face.
“You’re a gaby,” said Milly, scornfully. “If everybody was like you there’d be no carrying on the world at all. You’re absurd. Mother is quite annoyed with you, and so am I.”
“I’m simply wretched.” The tone was very far from that of the fine resolute creature whom Milly adored.
The truth was Mary had been following a policy of drift and it was beginning to tell upon her. Nearly a week had gone since the visit to Laxton had disclosed a state of things which had trebly confounded confusion. Besides, that ill-timed pilgrimage had given duty a sharper point, a keener edge, but as yet she had not gathered the force of will to meet the hard logic of the matter squarely.
In spite of a growing resolve to make an end of a situation that all at once had become intolerable, she had weakly consented to ride that morning with Jack as usual. So far he had proved the stronger, no doubt because two factors of supreme importance were on his side. One was the promise into which very incautiously she had let herself be lured, to which he had ruthlessly held her, the other the simple fact that she was deeply in love with him. It had been very perilous to temporize, yet having been weak enough to do so, each passing day tightened her bonds. The little scheme had failed. Laxton had caused not the slightest change in his attitude; he was not the kind of man to be influenced by things of that kind; only a simpleton like herself would expect him to be! No, the plain truth was he was set more than ever on not giving her up, and it was going to be a desperate business to compel him. To make matters worse his attraction for her was great. There was a force, a quality about him which she didn’t know how to resist. When they were apart she made resolves which when they were together she found herself unable to keep. The truth was, the cry of nature was too strong.