This conviction, which every moment deepened, she could not shake off and could not account for. She had a feeling that it was forced upon her consciousness through some dominating power of Lord Hurdly's spirit over her own. She felt as if she were hypnotized. She wondered if it could be so, and if she would presently come to herself and find that it was all a delusion and she had never seen Lord Hurdly or his house, but was on her way to St. Petersburg to join Horace and settle down to a limited and economical way of living.
At this thought her heart fell. She had laid her hand upon this dazzling prize of worldly wealth and position. Could she let it go?
During luncheon no reference was made to the subject of their late conversation. The servants remained in the room, and Lord Hurdly talked of public and quite impersonal affairs. In so doing he showed a trenchant insight, a broad knowledge of the world, an undeniably powerful mentality, and a decided skill in the art of pleasing. If the tone of his talk was cynical, it found, for that very reason, all the clearer echo in Bettina's heart. A certain tendency to cynicism was inborn in her, and the bitterness she felt at the loss of her mother had accentuated this. What was the use of loving, she asked herself, when love must end like this? In her heart she passionately hoped that she might never love again. And she had also a shrinking from being loved in any ardent manner that might make demands upon her which she could not respond to.
When the time came for Bettina to leave, she found that the cab in which she had come had been sent away, and, in its place, Lord Hurdly's brougham waited for her. He escorted her himself to the carriage door, and when the great footman who held it open touched his hat in silence as he took her orders, and then mounted beside his twin brother on the box and she was bowled away, on padded cushions from which emanated a delicious odor of fine leather, Bettina felt that, for the first time in her life, she was in her proper element.
The events of the morning seemed to her like some agitating dream. She wondered how long it had been since she left her hotel, and tried to guess what time it was. As she did so, her eyes fell on the small clock, neatly encased in the leather upholstering of the carriage just in front of her. The fitness of this object and of everything about her gave her a delicious sense of adaptation to her environment which she had never had before.