Meadows broke out into an angry attack on her folly and unkindness.  But the more he lost his temper, the more provokingly Doris kept hers.  She sat there, surrounded by his socks and shirts, a trim, determined little figure—­declining to admit that she was angry, or jealous, or offended, or anything of the kind.  Would he please come upstairs and give her his last directions about his packing?  She thought she had put everything ready; but there were just a few things she was doubtful about.

And all the time she seemed to be watching another Doris—­a creature quite different from her real self.  What had come over her?  If anybody had told her beforehand that she could ever let slip her power over her own will like this, ever become possessed with this silent, obstinate demon of wounded love and pride, never would she have believed them!  She moved under its grip like an automaton.  She would not quarrel with Arthur.  But as no soft confession was possible, and no mending or undoing of what had happened, to laugh her way through the difficult hours was all that remained.  So that whenever Meadows renewed the attempt to “have it out,” he was met by renewed evasion and “chaff” on Doris’s side, till he could only retreat with as much offended dignity as she allowed him.

It was after midnight before she had finished his packing.  Then, bidding him a smiling good night, she fell asleep—­apparently—­as soon as her head touched the pillow.

The next morning, early, she stood on the steps waving farewell to Arthur, without a trace of ill-humour.  And he, though vaguely uncomfortable, had submitted at last to what he felt was her fixed purpose of avoiding a scene.  Moreover, the “eternal child” in him, which made both his charm and his weakness, had already scattered his compunctions of the preceding day, and was now aglow with the sheer joy of holiday and change.  He had worked very hard, he had had a great success, and now he was going to live for three weeks in the lap of luxury; intellectual luxury first and foremost—­good talk, good company, an abundance of books for rainy days; but with the addition of a supreme chef, Lord Dunstable’s champagne, and all the amenities of one of the best moors in Scotland.

Doris went back into the house, and, Arthur being no longer in the neighbourhood, allowed herself a few tears.  She had never felt so lonely in her life, nor so humiliated.  “My moral character is gone,” she said to herself.  “I have no moral character.  I thought I was a sensible, educated woman; and I am just an ‘’Arriet,’ in a temper with her ‘’Arry.’  Well—­courage!  Three weeks isn’t long.  Who can say that Arthur mayn’t come back disillusioned?  Rachel Dunstable is a born tyrant.  If, instead of flattering him, she begins to bully him, strange things may happen!”

The first week of solitude she spent in household drudgery.  Bills had to be paid, and there was now mercifully a little money to pay them with.  Though it was August, the house was to be “spring-cleaned,” and Doris had made a compact with her sulky maids that when it began she would do no more than sleep and breakfast at home.  She would spend her days in the Campden Hill studio, and sup on a tray—­anywhere.  On these terms, they grudgingly allowed her to occupy her own house.