No, I have given him up now, till the mail train; but it is not very late; Arthur and Theodora can’t be back till past seven if they go to Whitford down,’ said John, fancying she was in alarm on their account.
‘I do not suppose they can.’
‘I am afraid we took you too far. Why are you not resting?’
‘It is cooler here,’ said Violet. ‘It does me more good than staying in my room.’
‘Oh, you get the western sun there.’
‘It comes in hot and dazzling all the afternoon till it is baked through, and I can’t find a cool corner. Even baby is fretful in such a hot place, and I have sent him out into the shade.’
‘Is it always so?’
‘Oh, no, only on such days as this; and I should not care about it to-day, but for one thing’—she hesitated, and lowered her voice, partly piteous, partly ashamed. ‘Don’t you know since I have been so weak and stupid, how my face burns when I am tired? and, of all things, Arthur dislikes a flushed race. There, now I have told you; but I could not help it. It is vain and foolish and absurd to care, almost wicked, and I have told myself so fifty times; but I have got into a fret, and I cannot leave off. I tried coming here to be cool, but I feel it growing worse, and there’s the dinner-party, and Arthur will be vexed’—and she was almost crying. ‘I am doing what I thought I never would again, and about such nonsense.’
‘Come in here,’ said John, leading her into a pleasant apartment fitted up as a library, the fresh air coming through the open window. ‘I was wishing to show you my room.’
‘How cool! Arthur told me it was the nicest room in the house,’ said Violet, her attention instantly diverted.