Theo was on the doorstep. "Escapin'," he confided to her while he handed her in. "Worst of these parties generally is that there's nobody amusin'," he observed as he did her this service. "Aren't you rather glad you haven't got to take on Flora's job, Madame Zabriska?"
No, at the moment at least Mina did not rejoice on that account.
When she reached home, there was nothing to change her mood. She found Cecily in a melancholy so sympathetic as to invite an immediate outpouring of the heart. Cecily was beautiful that evening, in her black frock, with her fair hair, her pale face, and her eyes full of tragedy. She had been writing, it appeared; ink and paper were on the table. She was very quiet, but, Mina thought, with the stillness that follows a storm. Unasked, the Imp sketched the dinner party, especially Harry's share in it. Her despair was laced with vitriol and she avoided a kind word about anybody. This was blank ingratitude to Mr Disney, and to Theo too; but our friends can seldom escape from paying for our misfortunes.
"Those people have got hold of him. We've lost him. That's the end of it," she cried.
Cecily had nothing to say; she leant back in a limp forlornness while Mina expatiated on this doleful text. There came a luxury into the Imp's woe as she realized for herself and her auditor the extreme sorrows of the situation; she forgot entirely that there was not and never had been any reason why Harry should be anything in particular to her at least. She observed that of course she was glad for his sake; this time-honored unselfishness won no assent from Cecily. Lacking the reinforcement of discussion, the stream of Mina's lamentation began to run dry.
"Oh, it's no use talking," she ended. "There it is!"
"I'm going back to Blent to-morrow," said Cecily suddenly.
It was no more than Mina had expected. "Yes, we may as well," she assented dismally.
Cecily rose and began to walk about. Her air caught Mina's attention again; on this, the evening before she returned to Blent, it had something of that suppressed passion which had marked her manner on the night when she determined to leave it. She came to a stand opposite Mina.