g-camp will settle
itself then. And besides," he added, "it'll be better to wait till
Ashley comes and you know what he's likely to do for you."

With the last consideration she could not but agree, though she shrank
from his way of putting it. It was some satisfaction at least to know
that, since the two hundred cards she had sent out had reached their
recipients, the process of public penance must in some measure have been
started. She had seen no one who could tell her what the effect had
been; her bridesmaids evidently knew enough to consider silence the
better part of sympathy; not even Drusilla Fane had looked in or called
her on the telephone during the last day or two; but she could imagine
pretty well the course that comment and speculation must be taking
through the town. There would be plenty of blame, some jubilation, and,
she felt sure, not a little sympathy withal. There was among her
acquaintance a local American pride that had always been jealous of her
European preferences and which would take the opportunity to get in its
bit of revenge, but in general opinion would be kindly. There came an
afternoon when she felt the desire to go forth to face it, to take her
first impressions of the world in her new relationship toward it. She
had not been beyond their own gate since the altered conditions had
begun to obtain. She had need of the fresh air; she had need to find her
bearings; she had need of a few minutes' intercourse with some one
besides her father, so as not to imperil her judgment by dwelling too
incessantly on an _idee fixe_. Rupert Ashley would land that night or
the next morning. In forty-eight hours he would probably be in Boston.
It was prudent, she reflected, to be as well poised and as sure of
herself as possible before his arrival on the scene.

Her father was slightly better. He could leave his bed, and, wrapped in
his violet dressing-gown, could lie on the chaise-longue, surrounded by
the luxurious comforts that were a matter of course to him. As she made
him snug he observed with a grim smile that his recovery was a pity. He
could almost hear, so he said, Dixon and Johnstone and Hecksher and
others of his cronies making the remark that his death would be a lucky
way out of the scrape.

She had come, dressed for the street, to tell him she was walking down
to the Temples', to see what had become of Drusilla Fane. She thought it
needless to add that she was inventing the errand in order