But when, with his usual debonair assurance, he presented himself at
Oldstone Cottage the following day, she received him with unwonted
graciousness and appeared to have entirely forgotten that he had given
her any just cause for offence.
Yesterday she had felt crushed by the magnitude of the blow which
had fallen on her, and in her treatment of Forrester she had almost
mechanically adopted the detached and chilly attitude prompted by her
annoyance with him. But to-day reaction had set in, and, like many another
of her sex, she sought to exorcise the pain which one man had inflicted by
flirting recklessly with another. It is a method which has its risks, more
especially if the second man happens to be dangerously in love, but a woman
hurt as Ann had been hurt does not stop to count risks, but only seeks
blindly for something--anything--that may serve to distract her thoughts
and keep at bay memories of which the smart and sting is too intolerable to
be borne.
Forrester was quick to perceive her altered attitude towards him and to
take advantage of it, although, with a diplomacy foreign to his usual
tactics and perhaps based on Lady Susan's warning counsels, he kept himself
well in hand.
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