And there was Mrs. Fleming, who had entered with him, looking like a little girl in her jaunty bicycle suit, her fair locks gleaming under a sealskin cap, her eyes beaming and her cheeks rosy, as she declared that she must go directly, it was really getting too cool to ride the bicycle home, but she really could not resist stopping a minute for a chat with dear Mrs. Hill-Dixon. That lady knew quite well that her titled cousin was the real attraction, but, of course, she was too polite to say so.
Then there was Reed Raymond, who had returned just a moment ago, and was watching Lord Werter devote himself to Annette with a sudden secret heart pang at what might possibly happen. To him, Annette was a queen among women. What if Lord Werter’s heart wound should be healed by the glance of those saucy black eyes? What if he won her for his cherished bride?
The man’s heart stood still a moment in its agony.
Then pride and despair came to the rescue, gibing him:
“Hush! What is that to you? She was yours once, and you could not trust her true heart! You outraged her loving faith. Now she hates you. It is the part of some nobler man to make her happy.”
He sighed, and tried not to watch them talking over there in that friendly undertone, nor to wonder what they were saying.
And there was Daisie, who had entered a little while ago very pale and lovely, making light of her sudden attack, and saying it was nothing but a swimming in the head, not a real fainting spell; she had scarcely been unconscious a minute, and she thought perhaps she had stayed out too long on her wheel, et cetera, all very vivaciously to Mrs. Hill-Dixon, but never once meeting the anxious glance of a pair of dark eyes that she felt burning on her face.
She could not meet his look, lest the crimson should fly to her face, for her form thrilled yet with the close pressure of the arms that had borne her so tenderly upstairs while consciousness was returning swiftly enough for her heart to recognize him, even if she had not heard Mrs. Hill-Dixon address him familiarly as Dallas.
Yes, she knew him now for her lost love, her true love, and she longed to cast herself on his broad breast and die there of her mingled joy and despair—joy that he had never been false, but had loved her truly—despair for the bond that held them asunder, the tie that made her Royall Sherwood’s wife.
But she must not yield to her longing—she must not let them know the fire that consumed her heart. Her part was silence and patience—patience even at the cost of heartbreak.