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Updated: May 21, 2025
She believed that the beneficent influence she exercised justified the hours she permitted him of her society. The other reason was that she deluded herself into believing that her sighs and Shelley-inspired imaginings were all because of Windebank's imminent return. She thought of him every day, more especially since she had met Perigal.
These thoughts were largely coloured with resentment at the fact of Windebank's not having followed up his unanswered letter by either another communication or a personal appeal. Soon she was torn by two emotions: hatred of the Devitts and awakened interest in Windebank; she did not know which influenced her the more.
Also, having for all her life been cut off from the gaieties natural to her age and kind, her present innocent dissipations were a satisfaction of this long repressed social instinct. But, at all times, Windebank's conduct was a puzzle.
Whenever little ones visited her, she would often, particularly if the guest were a boy, furtively hug him to her heart. Once or twice, on these occasions, she caught Windebank's eye, when she wondered if he understood her longing. Her other hunger was for things of the spirit.
If Windebank had been more skilled in the mechanism of a woman's heart, he would have promptly divined the girl's gaiety had been wilfully assumed, in order to conceal from herself the anxiety that Windebank's words, with reference to the proper conduct of a true lover, had inspired.
Archie Windebank's wealth, social position and career were as nought to her; he appealed to her only as a man, and her conceivable relationship to him was but as female to male. All other considerations, which she had before believed of importance, now seemed trivial and inept. She wondered how she could have been blinded for so long.
But love is a selfish passion, and when Mavis awoke three mornings later, when it wanted four days to her marriage, she would have forgotten Windebank's existence, but for the fact of his having sent her a costly, gold-mounted dressing-case. This had arrived the previous evening, at the same time as the frock that she proposed wearing at her wedding had come from Bathminster.
Unconsciously, her steps led her in a contrary direction from that in which she had purposed going. Almost before she knew what she had done, she had taken the road to Haycock Abbey, which was Windebank's Wiltshire home. It required something of an effort to enable her to retrace her steps.
Mavis, now that her resentment against Windebank's prosperity had found relief in words, was sorry that she had spoken as she had. After all, the man's well-being was entirely his own affair; it was not remotely associated with the decline in the fortunes of her family. She would like to say or do something to atone for her bitter words. "Poor little girl! Poor little girl!"
All this time she had given no further thought to Windebank's letter; it remained unanswered. As the days passed, and she saw nothing of Harold, she began to think considerably of the man who had written to offer her marriage.
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