At the cottage Janet was in bed. She had announced a sick headache, but it was a headache brought on by tears; but her first reaction to what she had seen had not been grief, it had been rage and disgust. She was fastidious, almost to the point of aloofness. Love had swept her off her feet and she had allowed Donald to kiss her, but it had never for a second been a light matter with her. That he should think she was one of a string of women whom he could hold in his arms revolted her, and bruised her spirit. The first thing she did on getting back to the cottage was to have a hot bath, and into it she tipped handfuls of soda. “Dirty beast,” she thought. “I’ll wash him out of my mind.” But in the night it had not been so simple. All the answers to all the questions that had troubled her seethed in her mind. “Of course Donald had to placate Gladys!” “Of course Gladys could tell him she wouldn’t have a resident governess!” “Of course Donald was like a dog on a chain. Gladys was the chain.” “Goodness knows how far the business between Gladys and Donald had gone. Quite a way if he could hold her in his arms in the garden in full view of the windows. No wonder he had not been able to mention the word love; even he would hardly dare to talk about love to his governess, while he was still in the thick of an affair with his housekeeper.” She writhed and broke into a perspiration. How he must have been laughing at her! The way she had given in to him! A pretty picture she had cut! He must have said to himself: “Just like the rest! I can get any girl to kiss me if I want them to.” She had sat up in bed on that thought. “But he’s got a shock coming if he tries it again. There’s one woman who’ll never give in to him again, and that’s me, and if he asks me why I shall tell him the truth. ‘You go back to Gladys, and if you’ve a spark of decency in you, you’ll marry her.’” The twitter of the first waking birds had found her with swollen cheeks and a throbbing head. She had kept her face from Maggie’s prying eyes by turning to the wall and begging to be left alone. Maggie had brought her a cup of tea and put it on the table by the bed, and tiptoed out.

Section 18