It was mean, and she knew it. Bee had been so good and true, always kind and helpful and ready to take trouble—surely, the least she could do now was to welcome her friend, and not to give way to foolish shame, merely because that friend lived in a small and unimportant house.
But—Pen's little contemptuous laugh!
If she could not stand a laugh for the sake of a friend, what was her friendship worth? And what was she worth? "Mean!" whispered again that accusing voice.
"Oh dear! I wish they had never come!" she sighed.
But they had come. It was sheer waste of time to sit wishing that her world had been ordered differently. The question was—not, how things might have been, but how she was going to meet them as they were?
Glancing out of the window, she saw Merryl bicycling down the road. So now it was too late to go in her stead. The matter was settled, and she might bend her attention to her work—that work, for the sake of which, ostensibly, she had refused to do a little kindness.
But the wandering attention failed to be bent. She had been beaten in one respect, and now she was beaten in another. The German translation made no further advance; and when the gong sounded for luncheon, she was still moodily nursing her grievances, still debating with herself what to do about the Majors—whether to put off, whether to speak, and if she did speak, what to say.
At luncheon she was to be taken by surprise—as one is apt to be, if one drifts along, waiting for circumstances to decide one's action, instead of simply resolving to do what is right.
Merryl did not appear. She had been some distance to take a note for Mrs. Royston, the latter said regretfully, and had not said that she was not well; and the heat had upset her. She was lying down upstairs. Mr. Royston was very much disturbed. He glared round angrily, and asked why on earth somebody else hadn't gone? It was too bad! They all made a regular Cinderella of Merryl, and nobody ever gave a thought to his poor little girl. What was Magda about not to do it, he wanted to know? He attacked the cold joint savagely, casting indignant glances.
Magda felt guilty and looked injured.