“Very pretty indeed,” she said lightly. “It’s a sad pity you’re such an ineligible fellow, isn’t it?”
And Loring, as the carriage drove off, said to himself admiringly: “What a wonderfully clever woman!”
Reaction from a heavy strain—even, apparently, if it is only the strain of combating exhaustion engendered by heat—is a terrible thing. When Mrs. Romayne got out of her carriage after her long drive, her face was haggard and drawn. She passed into the house, gathered up mechanically, and without a glance, two letters waiting for her on the hall-table; told the maid who was waiting for her that she might go to bed, and went up into the drawing-room.
There was a low chair by a little table covered with dainty, useless paraphernalia, which she particularly affected. She sat down in it now, almost unconsciously as it seemed, without even loosening her cloak, and with a long, low sigh; the moments passed, and still she sat there, a curious grey pallor about her face, her eyes gazing straight before her as though they were looking into the future or the past. At last, as if by a sudden fierce effort of will, she roused herself and began to tear open the letters still in her hand as if with a desperate instinct towards occupying her thoughts.
Her eyes fell on the letter by this time open in her hand, and she read it almost unconsciously, taking in the sense gradually as she read:
“Dear Cousin Hermia,
“I have just heard to my great sorrow of the death of our old friend Thomson, and I think it right to let you know of it. I believe I need not remind you that on any future occasion on which the help of your now, unfortunately, sole trustee may be necessary, you will find me entirely at your service.
“Faithfully yours,
“Dennis Falconer.”
With a sudden fierce gesture, of which her small white fingers looked hardly capable, Mrs. Romayne crushed the letter in her hand and lifted her head.
“To be thrown upon him!” she said in a curious, breathless tone. “To have to come into contact—close contact, personal contact—with him!”