"Not come!" This was not said at all in a voice of anger, but simply as eliciting some further expression of opinion.
"She's afraid of—Tom." Lucy had never hitherto expressed a positive opinion on that matter at Queen's Gate. When Augusta had spoken of Ayala as having run after Tom, Lucy had been indignant, and had declared that the running had been all on the other side. In a side way she had hinted that Ayala, at any rate at present, was far from favourable to Tom's suit. But she had never yet spoken out her mind at Queen's Gate as Ayala had spoken it to her.
"Afraid of him?" said Aunt Emmeline.
"I mean that she is not a bit in love with him, and when a girl is like that I suppose she is—is afraid of a man, if everybody else wants her to marry him."
"Why should everybody want her to marry Tom?" asked Lady Tringle, indignantly. "I am sure I don't want her."
"I suppose it is Uncle Tom, and Aunt Dosett, and Uncle Reginald," said poor Lucy, finding that she had made a mistake.
"I don't see why anybody should want her to marry Tom. Tom is carried away by her baby face, and makes a fool of himself. As to everybody wanting her, I hope she does not flatter herself that there is anything of the kind."
"I only meant that I think she would rather not be brought here, where she would have to see him daily."
After this the loan of the carriage was at last made, and Lucy was allowed to visit her sister at the Crescent. "Has he been there?" was almost the first question that Ayala asked.
"What he do you mean?"