"I must never marry again; that is certain," she said to herself, with a flickering smile. "So soon as I am tied to a person, I want to be free."
But would Miss Moggridge go, if Evelyn desired it? Could Evelyn ever have the heart to ask her to do so? There were days when Evelyn felt herself under a hopeless incubus. Companionship was all very well; but to be incessantly watched, followed, petted, advised, cared for, was a little too much—at her age, and after years of liberty. She panted under the oppression. Had Miss Moggridge suddenly vanished, Evelyn would have felt lonely; but none the less, this sensation that she could not, if she would, get rid of Miss Moggridge, fretted her.
To return to the dinner-party at Ripley Brow.
Miss Moggridge, like Sybella, was fond of lively colouring. The possession of a poetic soul did not imbue her with good taste in clothing her body. To gratify Evelyn, she had suppressed a startling cheese-hued costume, and wore nothing worse than sea-green. Lady Lucas was in black velvet; Mrs. Trevelyan and Evelyn were in black silk; Sybella alone was resplendent in sheeny mauve and snowy lace. Jean's white dress was the simplest imaginable; her only ornament being one large pearl-pin in her abundant hair; but Cyril again told himself that "he had never seen Jean so handsome." He did not this time make the observation aloud.
For a while Admiral Grice's gout and Sybella's assortment of mild ailments had full swing. Some at table were amused to overhear scraps of the dialogue, with its perpetual—
"I have had that—!" "I know so well what that is!" "I have gone through just the same!" "I assure you, I suffered from—" "My doctor advised me—" "I was recommended to take—" each seeming anxious to outvie the other in dolefulness of experience.
If one cannot hope to shine in any other respect, one may at least seek to excel in the matter of aches and pains.
Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan were in a steady swing of talk; Giles Cuthbert in subdued and sleepy tones made himself agreeable to Evelyn; Cyril kept Lady Lucas going; and Jean, far from looking bored, enjoyed her companion—a pleasant and gentlemanly young fellow, when he could be kept clear of certain controversial subjects which were to him as a red rag to a bull.
Rub the first, not to be called an explosion, was on the score of weather—a fruitful subject at all times for discussion. Sybella had long ago taken the winds of the neighbourhood under her especial patronage. She knew all about them, always; and with a person who can never be in the wrong, it is perilous to suggest a mistake. There could be no surer road to Miss Devereux's displeasure, than to assert that a breeze was northerly when she counted it westerly.
Unwittingly Mr. Trevelyan made this blunder. He alluded to the fact of a "strong south-east wind" that day, not three minutes after Miss Devereux had enlarged to her Admiral on the pleasantness of a "nice soft south wind." Of course, he had not heard her; but, of course, she did not believe this.