And she always answered him in a bright though somewhat hard little voice.
"Oh, Gerald is such a book-worm—he is devouring one of those abstruse treatises on music. I left him buried in it," or, "Gerald is going out this evening," or, "Gerald isn't well, and would like to stay quiet, so"—the end was invariably the same—"I thought I'd come and have a cosy chat with you, dad."
"And no one more welcome—no one in all the wide world more welcome," Mortimer Paget would answer, glancing, with apparent pleased unconcern, but with secret anxiety, at his daughter's face.
The glance always satisfied him; she looked bright and well—a little hard, perhaps—well, the blow must affect her in some way. What had taken place at the Gaiety would leave some results even on the most indifferent heart. The main result, however, was well. Valentine's dawning love had changed to indifference. Had she cared for her husband passionately, had her whole heart been given into his keeping, she must have been angry; she must have mourned.
As, evening after evening, Mr. Paget came to this conclusion, he invariably gave vent to a sigh of relief. He never guessed that if he could wear a mask, so also could his child. He never even suspected that beneath Valentine's gay laughter, under the soft shining of her clear eyes, under her smiles, her light easy words, lay a pain, lay an ache, which ceased not to trouble her day and night.
Mr. Paget came home early. Valentine was waiting for him in the drawing-room.
"We shall have a cosy evening, father," she said. "Oh, no, Gerald can't come. He says he has some letters to write. I think he has a headache, too. I'd have stayed with him, only he prefers being quiet. Well, we'll have a jolly evening together. Kiss me, dad."
He did kiss her, then she linked his hand in her arm, and they went downstairs and dined together, as they used to do in the old days before either of them had heard of Gerald Wyndham.
"Let us come into the library to-night," said Valentine. "You know there is no room like the library to me."
"Nor to me," said Mr. Paget brightly. "It reminds me of when you were a child, my darling."