The presents, the invitations, the breakfast—what people would say, especially her own people, and the not unnatural elation of old Mother Brande, on whom she had ruthlessly trampled—all these things flashed through her mind.
She would, of course, be sent home immediately. What a horrible outlook. To remain till the end of her days, as a sort of “object lesson,” a terrible living example, in the corner of her father’s large shabby country house. She would be pointed out to her younger sisters, and to others, as the old maid who had had her chance, and had danced it away!
During all this time her aunt was speaking fluently, ceaselessly, passionately, but to deaf ears—for Lalla was listening to her own thoughts, and too much occupied by the clamour of an inward voice to heed these outpourings.
At last one sentence struck her ear.
“And what is to be done with the cake, that has cost two hundred rupees, and is now in my storeroom?” demanded Mrs. Langrishe, dramatically.
“Raffle it,” cried Lalla, with a reckless laugh, “or have another starvation picnic, and give them wedding-cake and sugar ornaments!”
“Lalla!” shrieked her aunt, in a voice that would have sounded strange even to her most intimate friends. “You are the most abominable, unprincipled, devilish——”
“Oh, don’t bother!” interrupted Lalla, savagely; and she went out of the room, and gave the door a bang that caused the very cheval-glass to stagger in its place.
Once in her own bower, Lalla turned the key and flung herself into an armchair, knocking, as she did so, a parcel off a table at her elbow. She stooped and picked it up mechanically. It was a birthday-book, one of her numerous wedding presents, and had arrived that morning. She opened it in order to search for the verse opposite the date of the day. Perhaps it would give her a clue as to her future plans. For Lalla was extremely superstitious, and often shaped her course by means of the most trivial instruments, which were accepted by her as signs, tokens, and omens. Idiotic and preposterous as it may appear, she attributed all her present misfortune, not to her own deceit and folly—oh dear, no!—but to the disastrous fact of having had a green dress in her trousseau, and that was entirely Aunt Ida’s doing, no fault of hers.
Yes, Lalla had a curious temperament, and an imagination open to every fantastic influence. As she whirled over the leaves of the book, she said to herself, “I will take this as final, and abide by it, for bad or good.”