Nobody knew, of course, how tears were threatening the whole day. That had been the way with Fulvia from her cradle. She might pass through a year, or any number of years, without the smallest breakdown—always bright and even-spirited; but if once the sluices were forced open, she had to battle for days to regain her usual standing, and a word might overcome her.
"Fulvia Rolfe does not often cry, but when she does, she goes in for a regular rainy season," an old gentleman had once said.
The last "rainy season" lay so far back, however, that the possibility of its recurrence was forgotten.
Such a "rainy season" was on her now, only nobody supposed the fact—nobody saw anything unusual. The girls could only think of Nigel; and Nigel, at lunch, would only talk and laugh with Daisy, not seeming to notice Fulvia at all. Soon after two he had gone out, and now, at nearly six, he was still absent.
"What has become of Nigel?"
Daisy asked this again, bouncing the door open, banging it to in her childish fashion, and dancing across the room. Daisy's dancing was not sylph-like, and the room vibrated to her steps.
Fulvia could have cried out sharply, "Oh, don't!" but she did not, because Daisy would at once have inquired—"Why?" The fire was blazing, and she took up her work.
"Why don't you have lights? You'll hurt your eyes."
"Simms came, but I sent him away. This looked pleasanter."
"I can't imagine what makes Nigel stay out such a time; can you? Mother is getting into a worry. He couldn't be the whole afternoon with Mr. Carden-Cox, you know, or at the Rectory either. Fulvie, what did make you say that at breakfast-time about his going again to the Rectory?"