The next morning after breakfast she appeared, equipped for a walk, holding a letter in her hand. Mrs. Pocklington had ordered her household, and had now sat down to a comfortable hour with a novel before luncheon. Dis aliter visum.
“I am going out, mamma,” Laura began, “to post this note to Mr. Neston.”
Mrs. Pocklington never made mistakes in the etiquette of names, and assumed a like correctness in others. She imagined her daughter referred to Gerald. “Why need you write to him?” she asked, looking up. “He’s nothing more than an acquaintance.”
“Mamma! He’s an intimate friend.”
“Gerald Neston an intimate friend! Why——”
“I mean Mr. George Neston,” said Laura, in a calm voice, but with a slight blush.
“George!” exclaimed Mrs. Pocklington. “What in the world do you want to write to George Neston for? I have said all that is necessary.”
“I thought I should like to say something too.”
“My dear, certainly not. If you had been—if there had been anything actually arranged, perhaps a line from you would have been right; though, under the circumstances, I doubt it. As it is, for you to write would simply be to give him a chance of reopening the acquaintance.”
Laura did not sit down, but stood by the door, prodding the carpet with the point of her parasol. “Is the acquaintance closed?” she asked, after a pause.