She had trained herself to smile in the face of the disagreeable; she had acquired the _art_ of tranquillity.

This long anticipated interview with her daughter's cast- off, bewildered lover was inevitable.

They had known that he would come, insistent.

She had not kept him waiting.

When he came to the house the day after his arrival from England, following close upon a cablegram sent the day after the news of Anne's defection had struck him like a thunderbolt, she was ready to receive him.
And now, quite as calmly and indifferently, she was ready to say good-bye to him forever,--to this man who until a fortnight before had considered himself, and rightly too, to be the affianced husband of her daughter.