"I assure you I prefer the walk," Hermione said somewhat distantly. For although she had come to seek a favour, she did not wish to have favours thrust upon her unsought; and it was too much to have these people supposing that she had walked because she might not drive if she chose. The slight figure straightened itself, and the fair cheek flushed a little.
"Well, we will see—we will see!" Mrs. Dalton responded, nodding her head. "Yes, you are a good walker, no doubt, my dear, but it begins to get dusk early, you know, and you are much too young and pretty to walk home alone after dusk. Is she not, Anna? Much too young and pretty. And we see you so seldom, you are not going to hurry away now you have come at last."
Hermione again could have resented the patronage of that "my dear," but taking offence at such trifles was hardly compatible with the aim of her call. So she restrained herself.
It had not been her intention to remain long,—certainly not longer than was needed for the object in hand. But that object seemed for a while to elude her grasp. Every conceivable subject came under discussion except the one which she wished to bring forward. She did not wish the bringing forward to be too obvious an action on her own part. She wanted it to come up naturally, and this it refused to do.
Mrs. Dalton and her daughter were people who liked to air their ideas before a good listener, and Hermione was a very good listener, for whether interested or no she always looked interested. Mr. Dalton had a way of appealing deferentially to ladies for their opinions on vexed questions; and as he usually made their notions the text for a supplementary address by himself, the process consumed a good deal of time.
"I really must leave," Hermione said at length, seizing on a minute break, and she sighed, but did not rise. "There is so much to be done, in preparation for leaving home next week!" Hermione sighed again.
"Are you really going away? But, as I was telling you, Miss Rivers, the article which my husband read to me—"
"Yes, we are leaving. It is a trial to me, of course," Hermione said, with her gentle air of sadness, ignoring the elder lady's desire to discuss the last Quarterly. "My cousins have decided to spend a few weeks at East Bourne. But—"
"How delightful!" exclaimed Miss Dalton. "The very queen of watering-places, as—Who was it that said so, mother?"
"But I—" persisted Hermione.