The gay sprite of the dinner-table seemed to have taken her departure and a dignified and serious hostess filled her place. A hostess who discoursed of gardens, and architecture, and such subjects--and at ten o'clock when the Père Anselme gave his blessing and wished the company good-night, also gave a white hand to her guests, saying that Madame Imogen would show them the small salon where they could smoke and have their drinks before retiring to their rooms, then she bowed to them and walked off slowly to her part of the house.
When she had gone, Michael said a little hoarsely to Henry:
"I have got the fiend of a headache, old man. I think I won't smoke, but turn in at once."
An hour or two later, when the whole château was wrapped in darkness--the mistress of it crept from her bed-room to the great sitting-room, and turning on the light, she unlocked a blue despatch-box which stood beside her writing-table. From this she took a letter, marked a little with former perusals--and she read it over once more from beginning to end.
stamped upon it in red and it bore a date in June, 1907. It had no beginning and thus it ran:
Since after everything I wake to find you have chosen to leave me you can abide by your decision. I will not follow you or ever seek to bring you back. It is useless to ask you if you meant that you forgave me--because your going proves that you really have not--so make what you please of your life as I shall make what I please of mine.
When she put the paper back again, glittering tears gathered and rolled in shining drops down her cheeks.
He had meant that last paragraph then, and he meant it now evidently, since he knew that she was pledged to marry Henry when she should be free, and had made no protest. Perhaps he was glad and intended to marry Miss Daisy van der Horn! Her tears dried suddenly--and her cheeks burned. She must think this situation out, and not just drift. It was plain that Michael had been astonished to the point of stupefaction on seeing her. He could not have known then that his friend wished to marry her--Sabine--only that his friend wished to marry the lady they were going to see. But he knew it afterwards, he knew it at dinner--and yet he said never a word. What could it mean? What could be best to do? Perhaps to see him alone in the morning and ask him to grant her freedom and get the divorce as quickly as possible. She could count upon herself not to betray the slightest feeling in the interview. If only that strange turn of fate had not brought Lord Fordyce into her life, what glorious pleasure she would now take in trying her uttermost to fascinate and attract Michael--not that she desired him for herself!--only to punish him for all the past! But she was not free. She had given her word to Henry. The humiliation of feeling that Michael was making no protest, and would apparently from this fact agree willingly to divorce her, stung her pride and made her want to make him suffer and regret in some way. If she could believe that it was paining him, she would be glad--and if it appeared possible to keep up the pretence of unrecognition for longer than to-morrow, she would certainly do so; it was a frantic excitement in any case, and she adored difficult games. Then as she put the letter back in her despatch-box, her hand touched a large blue enamel locket, and with a shiver she hastily shut down the lid, and as one fleeing from a ghost she ran back to bed.