"Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains
Once passion's tumultuous blandishments knew;
Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins,
He ponders in frenzy o'er love's last adieu."—Byron.
A week later Mrs. Mynors stood before her mirror at a much earlier hour than was her wont. She was arranging her veil with a hand that shook, and eyes full of a curious mixture of anxiety and triumph. The anxiety was because she was bound upon an errand of enormous strategic importance; the triumph because her imagination ran on ahead and pictured things that she would have blushed to own.
Her old lover had assented to her proposal for a meeting. He was to be this morning at twelve o'clock at the Sportswoman—that smartest and most go-ahead of county ladies' clubs in London.
Virginia stood near. She held in her hand a dainty handbag, embroidered in steel beads and lined with pale violet. Into this she was putting a purse, a powder-puff, a wisp of old lace that was supposed to be a handkerchief, and so on. The aroma of the expensive perfume was over everything.
Mrs. Mynors' costume was a subtle scheme of faint half-mourning. It was most becoming.
"What time do you think you shall be back?" asked Virginia.
"My child, how can I say? You must expect me when you see me. It depends so much upon what I accomplish. If Osbert Gaunt proves disagreeable, I must just get a bit of lunch at the club and come straight home. If he is hospitably inclined, why, you see, it might be later."
"I only wanted to know how much money you are likely to spend."
"Don't trouble about that, dear one. I have plenty of money for my modest needs."
She stepped back, surveyed the general effect of her appearance, and sighed a little. Then, opening one of the small jewel drawers in her toilet table, she took out a ring-case, extracted the ring it contained, and slipped it upon her finger. It was a large tourmalin, set in small brilliants—a lovely blue, like the eyes of its wearer.