But Mrs. Westmore cared nothing for this. She only knew that he was a leader of men, was handsome, well reared and educated, and that he owned The Gaffs, her old rival. And that there it stood, a fortune—a refuge—a rock—offered to her and her daughter, offered by a man who, whatever his other faults, was brave and dashing, sincere in his idolatrous love for her daughter. That he would make Alice happy she did not doubt; for Mrs. Westmore's idea of happiness was in having wealth and position and a splendid name. Having no real heart, how was it possible for her to know, as Alice could know, the happiness of love?
An eyeless fish in the river of Mammoth Cave might as well try to understand what light meant.
He would make Alice happy, of course he would; he would make her happy by devotion, which he was eager to give her with an unstinted hand. Alice needed it, she herself needed it. It was common sense to accept it,—business sense. It was opportunity—fate. It was the reward of a life—the triumph of it—to have her old rival—enemy—bound and presented to her.
And nothing stood between her and the accomplishment of it all but the foolish romance of her daughter's youth.
And so she sat building her castles and thinking:
“With The Gaffs, with Richard Travis and his money would come all I wish, both for her and for me. Once more I would hold the social position I once held: once more I would be something in the world. And Alice, of course, she would be happy; for her's is one of those trusting natures which finds first where her duty points and then makes her heart follow.”
But Mrs. Westmore wisely kept silent. She did not think aloud. She knew too well that Alice's sympathetic, unselfish, obedient spirit was thinking it over.
She sat down by her mother and took up a pet kitten which had come purring in, begging for sympathy. She stroked it thoughtfully.
Mrs. Westmore read her daughter's thoughts:
“So many people,” the mother said after a while, “have false ideas of love and marriage. Like ignorant people when they get religion, they think a great and sudden change must come over them—changing their very lives.”