She could have smiled as she thought of them now.
They were neither gods nor devils, but weak human beings like herself. Weaker than herself, since they were young, impressionable clay in the hands of the potter.
And one of them loved her.
She leant forward in her chair, and covered her face with her hands.
A week ago, it had been an obscure penniless woman who had found courage to arrest an impending declaration of love.
To-day, the same woman,—she was rich, her own mistress, independent, free.
With a wondering sense of the simplicity of the matter, Anne saw herself at liberty to take a step the very existence of which, till to-night, she had not perceived.
She sat immovable, staring into the fire, thinking. In the silence of the sleeping house she looked at facts face to face, and made her decision. Here was she, Anne Page, not only a rich woman and her own mistress, but practically alone in the world. Life had hitherto offered her nothing. Now if she had courage to take it, a great if brief happiness was within her reach. She loved, and was beloved. Too late, as she had thought. But was it after all too late? Again Anne reflected while the fire upon which her unseeing eyes were fixed, leapt and sang softly to itself. Not if she could find the further courage to buy her happiness at a great price. To take it while it lasted, and of her own accord relinquish it before it had ceased to be happiness.
For as she thought and planned Anne saw clearly, as only a woman who is leaving her youth behind, can see clearly—without illusions, with only stern facts to guide her.
René Dampierre was young. Naturally, inevitably, sooner or later, he would turn to youth for love, and she must not stand in his way.