"This tree is forever sacred to us. John, it is listening now when I
tell you once more that I love you."
And then she fled.
CHAPTER XX
When once John Derringham had definitely made up his mind to any course
in life, he continued in it with decision and skill, and carried off the
situation with a high-handed assurance. Thus he felt no qualms of
awkwardness in meeting Mrs. Cricklander and treating her with an
enchanting ease and friendliness which was completely disconcerting. She
had no _casus belli_; she could not find fault with his manner or his
words, and yet she was left with the blank conviction that her hopes in
regard to him were over. She despised men in her heart because, as a
rule, she was able to calculate with certainty every move in her games
with them. Feeling no slightest passion, her very mediocre intellect
proved often more than a match for the cleverest. But her supreme belief
in herself now received a heavy blow. She was never so near to loving
John Derringham as during this Whitsuntide when she felt she had lost
him. Cora Lutworth once said of her:
"Cis is one of the happiest women in the world, because when she looks
in the glass in the morning she never sees anything but herself, and is
perfectly content.
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