It's odd that nice
women don't always like nice women, isn't it? I'm glad she was with you;
I was quite startled to learn she was here, and couldn't make it out. I
thought at first she might have got anxious about our little Sta, who
is with me and the nurse at Hymettus. But I'm glad it was only a lark. I
shouldn't wonder," he added, with a laugh, "although she always declares
she isn't one of those 'doting, idiotic mothers,' that she found it a
little dull without the boy, for all she thought it was better for ME to
take him somewhere for a change of air."
The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastle than she
had conceived. There had been a certain excitement in its first direct
appeal to her tact and courage, and even, she believed, an unselfish
desire to save the relations between husband and wife if she could. But
she had not calculated upon his unconscious revelations, nor upon their
effect upon herself. She had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a
moment of folly, lent herself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now
might be possible that it had been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent
her husband and child away three weeks before. Had she told the whole
truth? How long had this been going on? And if the soulless Van Loo
had deserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of an
intrigue rather than its beginning? Had she been as great a dupe of this
woman as the husband before her? A new and double consciousness came
over her that for a moment prevented her from meeting his honest eyes.
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