“But even if your promotion were rapid, we’d be frightfully old before you became ambassador—forty-five you’d be at the very least. Lady Bridgminster—I’ve heard all that discussed—” She had looked at him steadily during his long speech, at first with smiling incredulity, then with growing apprehension. For the first time she took note of the long line of his jaw, of the coldness of which those large ingenuous blue eyes were capable. Her brain worked rapidly. She recalled Lady Bridgminster’s amused comments upon the driving of “Johnny” in any direction by employing the right sort of opposition, that distinguished dame’s tactical use of Rosamond Hayle. But something deep down within her trembled a little—hinting of impotence, so new a sensation that she barely recognized it, although she fully understood that her Jackie had made up his mind. Therefore, postponing the higher tactics, she did what all sensible women mated to obstinate men ever do, she burst into tears.
But Ordham had seen women cry easily before, and was not as moved as a husband of four short weeks should be while his lovely bride wept and sobbed over the arm of her chair. He was ice-cold with anger; Mabel’s betrayal of the secret that his mother also was indifferent to his career was the final indignity; and he reflected cynically that the sooner a man discovered just how much a woman’s tears were worth the better.
But he was always courteous. He was also quite aware that underneath his wrath he was as much in love as ever. He was young and this exquisite creature was his; he appreciated the force of that subtle argument of hers, that if she had lent herself to the plot it had been through love alone. It would be some time before he forgot that she was an accomplished liar, and that he had been made a fool of by three clever women; but there was no particular reason why either he or his wife should be miserable when they still had much to make them happy. But they should be happy in his way, not hers. So he bent down and patted her head, somewhat awkwardly, for he felt anything but affectionate, and said very kindly:
“Don’t cry, Mabel. We will think no more about it.”
“No more about what?” sobbed Mabel. “Do you mean that you will go abroad?”