"You mean thing!" said Lucy. "I didn't think there was a woman so mean as that in the world. I'm not surprised now at Lord Fawn. Pick up what I hear, and send it you in letters,—and then be paid money for it!"
"Why not? It's all to do good."
"How can you have thought to ask me to do such a thing? How can you bring yourself to think so badly of people? I'd sooner cut my hand off; and as for you, Lizzie—I think you are mean and wicked to conceive such a thing. And now good-bye." So saying, she left the room, giving her dear friend no time for further argument.
Lady Eustace got away that morning, not in time, indeed, for the 11.30 train, but at such an hour as to make it unnecessary that she should appear at the early dinner. The saying of farewell was very cold and ceremonious. Of course, there was no word as to any future visit,—no word as to any future events whatever. They all shook hands with her, and special injunctions were given to the coachman to drive her safely to the station. At this ceremony Lucy was not present. Lydia had asked her to come down and say good-bye; but Lucy refused. "I saw her in her own room," said Lucy.
"And was it all very affectionate?" Lydia asked.
"Well—no; it was not affectionate at all." This was all that Lucy said, and thus Lady Eustace completed her visit to Fawn Court.
The letters were taken away for the post at eight o'clock in the evening, and before that time it was necessary that Lucy should write to her lover. "Lady Fawn," she said in a whisper, "may I tell him to come here?"
"Certainly, my dear. You had better tell him to call on me. Of course he'll see you, too, when he comes."
"I think he'd want to see me," said Lucy, "and I'm sure I should want to see him!" Then she wrote her answer to Frank's letter. She allowed herself an hour for the happy task; but though the letter, when written, was short, the hour hardly sufficed for the writing of it.
"Dear Mr. Greystock;"—there was matter for her of great consideration before she could get even so far as this; but, after biting her pen for ten minutes, during which she pictured to herself how pleasant it would be to call him Frank when he should have told her to do so, and had found, upon repeated whispered trials, that of all names it was the pleasantest to pronounce, she decided upon refraining from writing it now—