But he said nothing of
this to his wife, and as he knew that Alexina had long since revoked her
power of attorney (she had given him to understand that this was done at
Mortimer's suggestion) he believed that her money at least was safe.
CHAPTER III
I
Alexina, although she would have found it impossible, even if she had
so desired, to relapse into the incognitance of the years preceding her
mother's death, had nevertheless locked and sealed and cellared her ivory
tower, those depths of her nature where, she suspected, her true ego dwelt.
It was an ego she had forfeited the right to indulge, nor had she at this
time any desire to know more of herself than she did. Life after all was
very pleasant; she managed to fill it with many little and even a
few absorbing interests; and once she spent a month at Santa Barbara
chaperoning Janet Maynard, where her duties sat lightly upon her and she
would have responded naturally if addressed as Miss Groome, so completely
did Mortimer fade into the background. In the summer of nineteen-thirteen
Judge Lawton and Aileen overcame all protests and took her with them to
Europe, where, after a month in Paris, she visited Olive de Morsigny in her
renaissance chateau on the Loire. The memory of Gathbroke revisited her
and she half-wished the Judge would go to England, but the climate did not
agree with him, and after a few more enchanted weeks, in Italy and Spain,
she returned to Mortimer, who was distinctly duller than ever.
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