he world, then, for sheer
chivalry, he simply couldn't have left her. Even now, once he was
married to her it would be all right; he couldn't give her up or leave
her; the worst he could do would be to separate her from them.

There was really no reason then why she should be frightened. He was
going to marry her very soon. She knew that, by her science, though he
had not said so. She would be all right. She would be very careful. It
wasn't as if she didn't want to be nice and to do all the proper things.

And so Kitty cast off care.

Only, as she waited in the room prepared for the children, she looked at
herself in the glass, once, to make sure that there was nothing in her
face that could betray her. No; Nature had spared her as yet and her
youth was good to her. Her face looked back at her, triumphantly
reticent, innocent of memory, holding her charm, a secret beyond the
secrets of corruption, as her perfect body held the mystery and the
prophecy of her power. Besides, her face was different now from what it
had been. Wilfrid had intimated to her that it was different. It was the
face that Robert loved; it had the look that told him that she loved
him, a look it never wore for any other man. Even now as she thought of
him it lightened and grew rosy. She saw it herself and wondered and took
hope. "That's how I look when I'm happy, is it? I'm always happy when
I'm with him, so," she reasoned, "he will always see me like that; and
it will be all right."

Anyhow, there would be no unhappiness about his pretty lady when he came
back with them.

She smiled softly as she went about the room, putting the touches of
perfection to the festival. There were roses everywhere; on the table,
on the mantelpiece; the room was sweet with the smell of them; there was
a rose on each child's plate. The tremulous movements of her hands
betrayed the immensity and the desperation of her passion to please.
The very waiter was touched by her, and smiled secretly in sympathy as
he saw her laying her pretty lures. When he had gone she arranged the
table all over again and did it better. Then she stood looking at it,
hovering round it, thinking. She would sit here, and the children there,
Janet between her and Robert, Barbara between her and Jane.

"Poor little things," she said, "poor little things." She yearned to
them even in her fear of them, and when she thought of them sitting
there her lips moved in unspoken, pitiful endearments.