“Freke ran me out of the house so fast,” she began complainingly, “I was perfectly out of breath.”
“And of course couldn’t make a wish,” said Jack Throckmorton, laughing.
“I wished for everything,” replied Jacqueline.
Presently they were driving home through the still, frosty night. Judith felt a complete reaction from the ghost of merriment that had possessed her in going that road before. Even Throckmorton noticed the change. She laughed and talked gayly, but her speaking eyes told another story. Throckmorton could not but smile, and yet felt sorry, too, when Jacqueline, fancying herself unheard, whispered to Judith:
“I won’t tell mamma about the waltz.”
But Jacqueline was absent-minded too. When they had got home and had gone up-stairs, instead of Jacqueline following Judith to her room, as she usually did when she had anything on her mind, she went straight to her own room, and, locking the door, began to walk up and down, her hands behind her back. How strange, fascinating, overpowering was Freke, after all! Was a divorced man really a married man? Divorces were dreadful things, she had always known—but—suppose, in some other world than that about the Severn neighborhood, it should be considered a venial thing? Jacqueline became so much interested in these puzzling reflections that she unconsciously abandoned the cat-like tread which she had adopted for fear of waking her mother, and stepped out in her own brisk way up and down the big room. Mrs. Temple, hearing this, quietly opened her own chamber-door beneath. That was enough. The walk stopped as if by magic, and in ten minutes Jacqueline was in bed.
CHAPTER IX.
Throckmorton made one short, sharp struggle with himself, and then yielded to Jacqueline’s fascination.