Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/145

 richer man, the man whom she had married, whose name she bore.

It seemed plain enough, to a woman's keen vision—what sense so subtle, yet so easily beguiled—that Dorothy's choice was embarrassed, just as her own had been. The girl and her two admirers—how the old story repeated itself!—one, Jack Wilgress, the good-natured, good-looking idler, whose devotion to the river threatened to make him amphibious, and whose passion for scribbling verse bade fair to launch him adrift among the cockleshell fleet of Minor Poets; the other—Geoffrey Vincent! To call upon Margaret Vandeleur to guide her daughter's choice between two men of whom Geoffrey Vincent was one—surely here was the end and crown of Fate's relentless irony. She felt herself blushing as she pressed her forehead against the cool window-pane, put to shame by the thoughts which the comparison suggested, which would not be stifled. Right or wrong, at least her mother had been impartial: there was a sting in this, a failure of her precedent. She sighed, concluding mutely that silence was her only course; even if she would, she could not follow in her mother's footsteps—the girl must abide by her own judgment.

When she turned, smiling faintly, the light of the flickering candles fell upon her face, betraying a pallor which startled Dorothy from her reverie. She sprang from her chair, reproaching her selfishness.

"You poor, tired, little mother," she murmured penitently, with a hasty kiss. "How could I be so cruel as to keep you up after your journey! I'm a wretch, but I'm really going now. Goodnight."

"Good-night," said her mother, caressing the vagrant coils of the girl's amber-coloured hair. "Don't worry yourself; everything will come right if—if you listen to your own heart."