“I suppose the injustice is on my side. I am too exacting. I can’t help it.”
She only knew one way to love, and that, it appeared was a foolish way. “Oh, I wish I could go away again now—for ever.”
She got up and ate a solitary breakfast, busying herself afterwards in the house. Edward had left word that he would be in to luncheon, and was it not his pride to keep his word? But all her impatience had gone; Bertha felt now no particular anxiety to see him. She was on the point of going out—the air was warm and balmy—but did not, in case Edward should return and be disappointed at her absence.
“What a fool I am to think of his feelings! If I’m not in, he’ll just go about his work and think nothing more of me till I appear.”
But, notwithstanding, she stayed. He arrived at last, and she did not hurry to meet him; she was putting things away in her bedroom, and continued though she heard his voice below. The difference was curious between her intense and almost painful expectation of the previous day and this present unconcern. She turned as he came in, but did not move towards him.
“So you’ve come back? Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Yes, rather. But I say, it’s ripping to have you home. You weren’t in a wax at my not being here?”
“Oh no,” she said, smiling. “I didn’t mind at all.”
“That’s all right. Of course I’d never been to Lord Philip’s before, and I couldn’t wire the last minute to say that my wife was coming home and I had to meet her.”
“Of course not; it would have made you appear too absurd.”