FOOTNOTES:
[36] Government by order.
CHAPTER XII.
| "She had a step that walked unheard, |
| It made the stones like grass; |
| Yet that light step had crushed a heart |
| As light as that step was." |
| —W.H.Davies. |
At last, Roy was actually coming. The critical moment was upon them; and Rose sat alone in the drawing-room awaiting him.
Her mother was out; had arranged to be out for the evening also. The strain between them still continued; and it told most on Rose. The cat-like element in her loved comfort; and an undercurrent of clash was peculiarly irritating in her present sore, uncertain state of heart. Weeks of it, she knew, would scarcely leave a dent on her mother's leathern temperament. When it came to a tug the tougher nature scored, which was one reason why she had so skilfully avoided tugs hitherto.
True, she was of age; and her father's small legacy gave her a measure of independence. But how could one set about getting married in the face of open opposition? And—how keep the truth from Roy? Or tone it down, so that he would not go off at a tangent straightaway?
Assuredly the Fates had conspired to strip her headlong romance of its gilded trappings. But her moment for marriage had come. She was sick to death of the Anglo-Indian round—from the unattached standpoint, at least. Roy fascinated her as few men had done; and she had been deliberately trying to ignore the effect of her mother's brutal frankness. Their coming together again, in these changed conditions, would be the ultimate test. Such a chasm of distance seemed to yawn between that tender parting in her boudoir and this critical reunion—in another world....
Sounds of arrival brought her to her feet; but she checked the natural impulse to welcome him in the verandah. Her innate sense of drama shrank from possible awkwardness, a false step, at the start.