After all, pride was not worth so very much.

Suppose she were very gentle to him, and tried to please him in just a friendly way, that would not be undignified nor seem to be throwing herself at his head.

She would begin to-morrow, if she could.

Then she remembered Lady Ethelrida's words at the dinner party--was it possible that was only three weeks ago this very night--the words that she had spoken so unconsciously, when she had showed so plainly the family feeling about Tristram and Cyril being the last in the male line of Tancred of Wrayth.

She remembered how she had been angered and up in arms then, and now a whole education had passed over her, and she fully understood and sympathized with their point of view.
And at this stage of her meditations her eyes grew misty as they gazed into distance, and all soft; and the divine expression of the Sistine Madonna grew in them, as it grew always when she held Mirko in her arms.
Yes, there were things in life which mattered far, far more than pride.
And so, comforted by her resolutions, she at last went to bed.
And Tristram sat alone by the fire in his own sitting-room, and stared at that other Tristram Guiscard's armor.