CHAPTER IX
AN INTERLUDE
I
As Mary made her way from Bridport House across the Park, in the direction of Broad Place and luncheon, it came suddenly upon her that she was in a state of the most abject misery she had ever been in. It was a gorgeous midday of July, but the world had ceased to be habitable. She had come up against a blank wall. At that moment there was nothing in life to make it worth while.
In the ordeal she had just passed through a fierce pride had forbade her to show one glimpse of her real feelings. She had carried off the whole scene with almost an air of comedy, for she was determined that "those people" should not realize what wounds it was in their power to deal. But Dame Nature, now that she had the high-mettled creature to herself, was having something to say to her on the matter. A price was being exacted for these heroics and for this stoicism.
The Duke had left an impression of fine chivalry on a perceptive mind, but in spite of that, now they were no longer face to face, her deepest feeling was an angry resentment. Life was not playing fair. In the course of a strenuous three and twenty years she had
