“Not so! This youth came, saw, and conquered.”
“Is it the youth I see with Ken McLeod?”
“The same. Look! There they are, together as usual.”
“She is very sweet and attractive.”
Sunna answered this remark by asking Thora to honour Colonel Belton with her company for a short time, saying: “In the interval I will take care of Ian Macrae.” Then Thora stood up in her innocence and loveliness and she was like some creature of more ethereal nature than goes with flesh and blood. For the eye took her in as a whole, and at first noticed neither her face nor her dress in particular. Her dress was only of white tarlatan, a thin, gauze-like material long out of fashion. It is doubtful if any woman yet remembers its airy, fairy sway, and graceful folds. 110 The filmy robe, however, was plentifully trimmed with white satin ribbon, and the waist was entirely of satin trimmed with tarlatan. The whole effect was girlish and simple, and Thora needed no other ornament but the pink and white daisies at her belt.
However, if Sunna expected Thora’s manner and conversation to match the simplicity of her dress, she was disappointed. In Love’s school women learn with marvellous rapidity, and Thora astonished her by falling readily into a conversation of the most up-to-date social character. She had caught the trick from Ian, a little playful fencing round the most alluring of subjects, yet it brought out the simplicity of her character, while it also revealed its purity and intelligence.
Dancing had commenced when Mrs. Ragnor entered the room on the arm of her son Boris. Boris instantly looked around for Sunna and she was dancing with McLeod. All the evening afterwards Boris danced, but never once with Sunna, and Adam Vedder watched the young man with scorn. He was the most desirable party in the room for any girl and he quite neglected the handsome Sunna Vedder. That was not his only annoyance. McLeod was dancing far too often with 111 Sunna, and even the beautiful youth Ian Macrae had only asked her hand once; and Adam was sure that Thora Ragnor had been the suggester of that act of politeness. Girls far inferior to Sunna in every respect had received more attention than his granddaughter. He was greatly offended, but he appeared to turn his back on the whole affair and to be entirely occupied in conversation with Conall Ragnor and Colonel Belton concerning the war with Russia.
Every way the evening was to Sunna a great disappointment, in many respects she felt it to be a great humiliation; and the latter feeling troubled her more for her grandfather than for herself. She knew he was mortified, for he did not speak to her as they walked through the chill, damp midnight to their home. Mrs. Brodie had urged Adam and Sunna to put the night past at her house, but Adam had been proof against all her suggestions, and even against his own desires. So he satisfied his temper by walking home and insisting on Sunna doing likewise.
It was a silent, unhappy walk. Adam said not a word to Sunna and she would not open the way for his anger to relieve itself. When they reached home they found a good fire in the room full of 112 books which Adam called his own, and there they went. Then Sunna let her long dress fall down, and put out her sandalled feet to the warmth of the fire. Adam glanced into her face and saw that it was full of trouble.
“Go to thy bed, Sunna,” he said. “Of this night thou must have had enough.”