In the light of which knowledge she opened a certain despatch-case and re-read the letters she had received from Cyprian since writing to inform him that she had left school.
The mining life seemed lonely enough and a thread of tiredness stole in and out of the neatly-formed syllables. Ferlie, with faint misgivings, asked herself whether Cyprian were not one of those men who might be described in a book as having made a mess of his life. Instinctive wisdom whispered that Muriel would have made a greater mess of it for him had she given herself the opportunity; but it was doubtful that Cyprian, even now, believed that. No credit to him to be so faithful to his ideals; it was just the way he was made.
"And if I had an Ideal," Ferlie told herself, "I could be faithful to it too."
At tea her mother asked her if she had a cold....
Articles of furniture were already beginning to disappear from the house; two valuable pictures had gone to Christie's. Ferlie suggested: "Margery wants me to go back for a few days. If you don't mind, Mother, I should like to go."
"Only till Monday, then," said her mother, rather miserably; "Next week the packing begins in earnest."
They were chivalrous to Ferlie in their studious avoidance of Clifford Greville-Mainwaring's name.
At the back of her brain flitted the ghost of a memory: the Zoological Gardens and a lion's cage. Somebody had told her that the bars of those other cages, the existence of which she had guessed at, were made of gold. Was Mainwaring unconsciously forging them now for her? She decided to discuss the matter with Margery. There was no nonsense about Margery. Her practical scrutiny of the situation might lay the spectres of those unborn dreams filming Ferlie's vision.
* * * * * *
And Margery, once approached, certainly made things sound simpler.