Chapter 45

Returned from her visit, Miss Starbrow appeared for a time to have
recovered her serenity, and proceeded to change her dress for dinner,
softly humming an air to herself as she moved about the room. "Poor Fan,"
she said, "how barbarous of me to treat her in that way--to say that I
almost hated her! No wonder she refused to forgive me; but her resentment
will not last long. And she does not know--she does not know." And then
suddenly, all the colour fading from her cheeks again, she burst into a
passion of weeping, violent as a tropical storm when the air has been
overcharged with electricity. It was quickly over, and she dressed
herself, and went down to her solitary dinner. After sitting for a few
minutes at the table, playing with her spoon, she rose and ordered the
servant to take the dinner away--she had no appetite. The lamps were
lighted in the drawing-room, and for some time she moved about the floor,
pausing at times to take up a novel she had been reading from the table,
only to throw it down again. Then she would go to the piano, and without
sitting down, touch the keys lightly. She was and she was not in a mood
to play. She was not in voice, and could not sing. And at last she went
away to a corner of the room which was most in shadow, and sat down on a
couch, and covered her eyes with her hand to shut out the lamplight. "If
he knew how it is with me to-night he would certainly be here," she said.
"And then it would all be over soon. But he does not know--thank God!...
Oh, what a fool I was to call him 'Jack'! That was the greatest mistake I
made. But there is no help for it now--he knows what I feel, and nothing,
nothing can save me. Nothing, if he were to come now. I wish he would
come. If he knows that I am at his mercy why does he not come? No, he
will not come. He is satisfied; he has got so much to-day--so much more
than he had looked to get for a long time to come. He will wait quietly
now for fear of overdoing it. Until Christmas probably, and then he will
send a little gift, perhaps write me a letter. And that is so far off--
three months and a half--time enough to breathe and think."

Just then a visitor's knock sounded loud at the door, and she started to
her feet, white and trembling with agitation. "Oh, my God! he has come--
he has guessed!" she exclaimed, pressing her hand on her throbbing
breast.

But it was a false alarm. The visitor proved to be a young gentleman
named Theed, aged about twenty-one, who was devoted to music and
sometimes sang duets with her. She would have none of his duets to-night.
She scarcely smiled when receiving him, and would scarcely condescend to
talk to him. She was in no mood for talking with this immature