into
the face of the girl she left. That she had outraged these people's
sense of their importance she felt reasonably sure, and their
resentment, which she admitted was, perhaps, more or less warranted,
did not trouble her, but the drift of Miss Weston's last observation
filled her with anger. They evidently regarded her as a raw Colonial,
endued with no sense of what was fitting, who could not expect to be
countenanced by an insolvent land-owning family. This was amusing; but
the suggestion that she recognized the fact, and because of it had
endeavored to alienate Clarence Weston from his relatives, who had
apparently been very glad to get rid of him, was a very different
matter. However, she recovered her composure with an effort, and
succeeded in taking a part in the general conversation which broke out
when Weston drove away.

CHAPTER XIX

ILLUMINATION

It was three or four months later when Ida was carried swiftly
westward through the London streets toward twelve o'clock one night.
The motor purred and clicked smoothly, slinging bright beams of light
in front of it as it twisted eel-like through the traffic. The glass
that would have sheltered Ida from the cool night breeze was down, but
she scarcely noticed the roar of the city or the presence of Arabella
and Mrs. Kinnaird.

She was thinking of that afternoon at Scarthwaite, and wondering, as
she had done somewhat frequently since then, what had impelled her to
speak in that impulsive fashion. It had not been, as she now
recognized, merely a desire to justify Clarence Weston in the eyes of
his English relatives, for she had felt reasonably sure that this was
a thing beyond accomplishment while he remained a railroad-hand or a
bush chopper. The other explanation was that she had spoken to
reassure herself; but that, as she would have admitted, seemed
scarcely necessary, for in this respect he did not need an advocate.
There was the third alternative, that the attitude of Weston and his
daughter toward the absent man had fanned her dislike of shams into a
blaze of downright rage, and that she had merely ridden a somewhat
reckless tilt against her pet aversions.

One thing, at least, was certain. Weston had not called on her, to ask
for any further information about his son; and, for that matter, she
would have been astonished had he done so. She realized now that there
was truth in what Clarence Weston said when he told her that the
failures were so