She held out a hand to Mrs. Allestree with an odd little laugh. “Oh, how do you do?” she said calmly; “you know Wicklow has gone off and left me! I’m ordering a new hat to keep up my spirits.”
Mrs. Allestree sat down weakly in the nearest chair. “Margaret!” she protested faintly.
Margaret looked at her from under her drooping lashes. “Did you expect to find me in tears?” she asked coolly.
Her visitor colored deeply; after all, Robert had been right, she had no justification, her well meant sympathy was fruitless, her coming an intrusion. “I suppose I shouldn’t have come here at all,” she admitted reluctantly, her fine old hands trembling a little in her lap, “but I came to tell you that I had always loved you, Margaret.”
The younger woman looked at her strangely, her face changing rapidly from defiance to a shamed affection, the unlooked for tenderness touched her sore heart; her stormy nature had been passing through one of its eclipses, when the light itself seemed to go out and leave her groping blindly for relief, for hope, for an escape from the intolerable situation which her own folly and infatuation had created, and which kept closing in upon her like the narrowing walls of the inquisition dungeon. “I think it lovely of you to say it,” she murmured, a little break in her voice, her lip quivering as she averted her face.
Mrs. Allestree’s eyes softened; she gave a hasty glance about her, partly to assure herself that they were alone and partly because she was just realizing the fanciful splendor of Margaret’s surroundings. The room was white and gold and every article on her toilet-table was gold mounted, every detail suggesting the height of luxurious sybaritism. “Margaret,” she began gently, “it is never too late, can’t I do something to—to bridge it over?”
Margaret’s lips stiffened, her momentary emotion passing at the mere suggestion of a continuance in the old intolerable relation. She shook her head impatiently. “I wouldn’t bridge it over if I could!” she exclaimed with passion.
But the old lady, foreseeing troubles which would involve those near and dear to her, could not give up so easily. “My dear child, it’s dreadful! The woman always suffers—and your husband’s high position, the publicity of it!”
Margaret shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t help that!” she said scornfully, “I’ve borne it long enough. Haven’t I a right to be happy? A nursemaid might expect that, a cook! Why shouldn’t I have a little happiness in my life?”
“You have so much!” Mrs. Allestree looked about her, “everything wealth can purchase—and the children! God has been good to you; hasn’t He a right to chasten you a little?”