James had gone to Truro to see a surgeon there, and had announced his intention of spending the night with cousins. The utter bliss of being alone, and having the cottage free from the masked presence for even one day acted like a balm on Vashti. She forbade Willie to come near her till the evening, partly from motives of prudence, but chiefly because she craved for solitude. By the afternoon she was more her old, sufficient, well-poised self, and when evening drew on she busied herself about her little preparations in the kitchen with a colour burning in her cheeks and a softened light in her eyes. That evening Vashti Glasson was touched with a grace of womanliness she had never worn for her husband. Every harmless and tender instinct of the lover was at work in her, making her choose her nicest tablecloth, arrange a cluster of chrysanthemums in an ornate glass vase, put a long-discarded ribbon of gaudy pink in her hair. Then she took off her working frock of dirty, ill-mended serge, and shook out in triumph the folds of the black silk, now made up in all its glory, and hideous with cheap jet. It converted her from a goddess of the plough to a red-wristed, clumsy girl of the people; and when her hair was dressed in the fashionable lumps, with a fringe-net hardening the outlines, she looked like a shop-girl, but she herself admired the effect intensely. When three taps at the window told that Strick was outside, the colour flew to her face, making her so beautiful that she triumphed even over her costume; she had become a high priestess of Love, and was not to be cheated of any of the ritual. She was decked out as for a bridal; no more rough-and-ready wooing and winning for her. But Strick's passion was somewhat daunted by all the preparations for his welcome; the kitchen looked unusual, and so did she, and he hung back for a moment on the threshold. "What's come to 'ee?" he asked, foolishly agape. "'Tes a weddin' gown made for you," said Vashti simply. "But 'tes black!" he stammered. "'Tes ill luck on a black bridal, Vassie." "Ours is no white bridal, lad," she told him. "Come in and set down--yes, take that chair," and she pushed Glasson's accustomed seat forward for her lover. Conversation languished during the meal--Willie Strick was bewildered by the oddness of everything, Vashti included; his was no level head to plan any details or set a scene--Vashti won by stealth, anywhere and anyhow, was all he had thought of or wished for. Hers was the master-mind and he was helpless before it, and while she inflamed him she frightened him too.