Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/24

 intended "surprise visit" without appearing to have avoided it intentionally. Yet, rather than run the risk of seeming inhospitable to a woman who had not the slightest claim upon her, Milly would cut short her visit to Riding Wood. To be sure, she might have stopped a little longer, and still have reached home in time, if she had accepted the offer of Mrs. Forestier's motor. But, if one could get at her real reason or refusing it, very likely it would turn out to be consideration for the chauffeur, or something else absurdly unselfish, rather than her own desire for a second walk through the woods.

"However," thought Mrs. Forestier, as she saw the two tall, erect figures disappear over the brow of the slight hill which separated them from the long stretch of wood, "however, Milly is so desperately in love with Sir Ian after all these thirteen years of being his wife, that I believe she actually enjoys a tête-à-tête with him better than anything else. He's perfectly delightful to her, too, and they're the greatest friends. Yet I wonder if he's as much in love with her as she is with him, or

She did not finish the sentence in her mind, but let it break off vaguely as she lost sight of Sir Ian and Lady Hereward, walking companionably together, shoulder to shoulder.