Mrs. Lakeman appeared as naturally as possible at the Pitlochry breakfast-table the next morning. She looked haggard and ill with her two nights' travel; and now that the excitement of getting Tom away from London, and of the interview with Margaret was over, she asked herself once or twice whether the game had been worth the candle. After all, she thought Tom had only three or four thousand a year, and she didn't believe he would ever do much in politics. It was the dread of losing him that had roused her, the dramatic situation that had interested her, but now that she had created the situation she didn't know what to do with it; she was even a trifle bored. But everything bored her. She was a woman of humor and enterprise rather than of passion and sentiment, so that nothing kept a lasting hold upon her when once it had lost its novelty. In some sort of fashion she knew herself to be a sham, always experimenting with effects and make-believe feelings, but, try as she would, she could never drive realities home into her heart. In a sense Lena was like her, always wanting the thing beyond her reach, and experiencing a curious sense of satiety as soon as she possessed it. Even the presence of Tom after the long interviews of yesterday had lost some of its fascination.
"I don't think I want him," she told her mother, "but I don't want to let him go."
"It's my opinion that I made a fool of myself in going up to London," Mrs. Lakeman said. Her energy had flagged, and she wondered at her own nerve in going to Margaret; she scoffed at Dawson Farley and his proposal of marriage; she felt Tom to be in the way at Pitlochry. There were some people staying at Kingussie—she had heard of them from an acquaintance she met on the platform at Euston—she wanted to get over to Pitlochry. They were rich people and full of enterprise; a couple of grown-up sons, too; the elder infinitely better off than Tom Carringford. It was quite possible that he would fall in love with Lena. The worst of it was that Tom was here; besides, she had set herself a task and had to go through with it. After all, it might afford her some amusement, and she was always eager for that; better begin and get it over. She took him into the garden after breakfast to a seat in a secluded corner under a pear-tree; the glen and the rushing, gurgling brook were behind it, and made an accompaniment to their interview.
"Well, what about Margaret Vincent?" she asked him.
"I have had no letter from her. I don't understand it."
"I didn't think there would be one," she answered, significantly, and with an insolence in her manner that put him on the defensive.
"Why didn't you?"
Mrs. Lakeman smiled and said nothing.
"You got my telegram," he inquired—"telling you we were engaged?" Lena had spoken of it two or three times yesterday, but he could hardly believe that so important a communication had been received in the cavalier fashion in which it was apparently treated.