"Oh, Toby, don't be so tiresome!" Virginia adjured her. "You know you're just as pleased as I am—or very nearly. Shall we go straight to Kencote from London, or go to Bathgate and leave some things at Blaythorn and pick up some others? I think we'll do that. I must take my smartest frocks, and so must you. For you are really quite presentable if you would only give yourself a chance."
"You may leave me out of it," said Miss Dexter. "I'm as likely to go to Kencote as I am to Windsor Castle. If you like to put your head into the bear's den and say 'Thank you for having tried to eat me up, and now by all means finish me off,' you can. I have a little more self-respect, and nothing would induce me to go near those people."
"Ah!" said Virginia, "you are still huffy because Mrs. Clinton snubbed you. Quite right of her! You are a dear, loyal, faithful creature, and I know you would follow me to much more terrible places than Kencote, where you will find yourself in a week's time; but you had no business to go interfering without consulting me about it. I'm too fond of you to snub you, as you so often deserve, so I'm quite pleased when other people do it for me."
"Yes, that's all I get for trying to help you," said Miss Dexter. "What do you suppose has happened? Has Captain Dick told them that you have money? That's the only thing I can think of that would make that purse-proud old lunatic change his mind."
"He doesn't say anything about that, and I'm sure he hasn't told them. I shall tell Mr. Clinton, and it will make him love me even more than I'm going to make him as it is. I know I'm talking nonsense, but in the state of mind I find myself in at present that can't be helped. No, Toby dear, it is Mrs. Clinton who has done it all. My Dick says so. She was always on our side. She liked the look of me, Toby, odd as it may seem to you; and if she could have got round the old bear's prejudices—but I mustn't call him that any longer—she would have done so before. I knew I was right about her. It was the only thing I didn't quite like about Dick—that he seemed always to think she was of no account. Now he has come round, and my cup of happiness is brimming over. Oh, Toby, I've never been so happy in my life before." She put her handkerchief to her eyes, but she smiled gaily through her tears.
"Quite so," returned Miss Dexter, unmoved by this show of emotion. "You're all for the moment. Next week, when you are alone amongst them all, and they show you what they really think of you, you will never have been so miserable in your life. People like that don't change. They haven't got it in them. And you are laying up a most uncomfortable time for yourself. I give you solemn warning. I know what I'm talking about. I'm not carried away by sentiment as you are. Don't go, Virginia. Don't make yourself cheap."
"My dear," said Virginia in gentle seriousness, "if I were really making myself cheap by going to Kencote, I would go, if Dick asked me to. I can never be cheap to him. He'll be there, and nothing that can happen will touch me. But nothing will happen—nothing disagreeable. Why should you think so?"
Miss Dexter threw out her hands. "Oh, when you talk like that!" she said. "Well, go, my dear, and good luck go with you."
"You are my good luck, and you will go with me," said Virginia. "Now, Toby darling, don't say no. You have done so much for me. Surely you can do this."
"I suppose I can," said Miss Dexter after a short pause. "But if Mrs. Clinton thinks I'm going to fall into her arms after her treatment of me, she'll find herself mistaken. And if the worst comes to the worst I can tell Mr. Clinton what I think of him. I should like an opportunity of doing that. Yes, I'll come, Virginia."