“I will be sure to do so.”
“You—you—you will love me best of all?”
“How can I help it? Don’t cry now. Send me away with a smile.”
“Yes, dear. I will try and be happy, and try and get well.”
“I am sorry you cannot go with us, Sophy.”
“I am sorry too, Archie; but I could not bear the knocking about, and the noise and bustle, and the merry-making. I should only spoil your pleasure. I wouldn’t like to do that, dear. Good-bye, and good-bye.”
For a few minutes he was very miserable. A sense of shame came over him. He felt that he was unkind, selfish, and quite unworthy of the tender love given him. But in half an hour he was out at sea, Marion was at his side, the Admiral was consulting him about the cooling of the dinner wines, the skipper was promising them a lively sail with a fair wind—and the white, loving face went out of his memory, and out of his consideration.
Yet while he was sipping wine and singing songs with Marion Glamis, and looking with admiration into her rosy, glowing face, Sophy was suffering all the slings and arrows of Madame’s outrageous hatred. She complained all dinner-time, even while the servants were present, of the deprivation she had to endure for Sophy’s sake. The fact was she had not been invited to join the yachting-party, two very desirable ladies having refused to spend two months in her society. But she ignored this fact, and insisted on the fiction that she had been compelled to remain at home to look after Sophy.
“I wish you had gone! Oh, I wish you had gone and left me in peace!” cried the poor wife at last in a passion. “I could have been happy if I had been left to myself.”
“And your low relations! You have made mischief enough with them for Archie, poor fellow! Don’t tell me that you make no complaints. The shameful behaviour of those vulgar fishermen, refusing to sail a yacht for Braelands, is proof positive of your underhand ways.”