When he was gone and Thea was alone in her room that night, she gave way to hysteric tears.
“He shall never call me his sister again. I will not bear it,” she vowed. “I will be all or nothing. What if he is ever so much older and richer and smarter than I am? Old men have married pretty, penniless girls before now. And I am pretty, they say. Other men admire me. Why not Norman de Vere, the man on whom I have set my heart?”
She flung herself impetuously down upon her knees, and lifting wet eyes, like violets drowned in summer rain, prayed passionately:
“Dear Heaven, only give me his love, I ask no other boon under the sun!”
The next morning Thea was more careful with her toilet than she had ever been before. Jealousy of the handsome Miss Bentley had suddenly forced her to place herself on the defensive. She felt that she could not give up her hope without an effort to win him, although she sighed:
“She has everything in her favor—wealth, family, culture, even age—for she is twenty-five, Nell says—while I, nameless, penniless, scarcely more than a child, have nothing but beauty and innocence on my side. Yet I love him with the true heart of a woman, and I can not content myself with that farce of sisterhood. Let it be all or nothing!”
If she chose to be wandering through the grounds that morning, no one could blame her, for she knew perfectly well that Miss Bentley would monopolize him when he entered the house.
But when she saw him dismount from the beautiful bay horse, fling the reins to a servant, and enter, a sudden shyness seized upon Thea, and she fled from the path down a secluded rose alley to a seat, with a wildly beating heart.
“It looked too much as if I were waiting for him. He would deem me forward,” she thought.
But Norman de Vere had caught the flutter of a white wool dress and golden curls. He followed where they led.