‘Yes, but it is, mamma, for everybody has a secret from everybody.’
The words made Constance and Dolores look round with a start from their colloquy under the shade of the window-curtains, but no one was thinking of them. Just as the plans were settled, Constance came forward, saying, ‘Lady Merrifield, may I have dear Dolores to spend the day with me? We neither of us wish to join your kind party to Rockstone, and we should so enjoy being together.’
‘I had much rather stay,’ added Dolores.
‘Very well,’ said Lady Merrifield, reflecting that her sisters would be grateful for the diminution of the party, and that it would be easier to keep the peace without Dolores.
The defection was hailed with joy by her cousins, though they were struck dumb at her extraordinary taste in not liking shopping.
Jasper did look rather small when his mother assured him in private he might have trusted her to see that he was not to be incommoded with Gillian’s girls, and he only observed, in excuse for his murmurs, that it made a man mad to see his sisters always off after some charity fad or other.
“‘Always’ being a few hours once a week,” she said.
‘Just when one wants her.’
‘Look here, my boy,’ she said, ‘you don’t want your sisters to be selfish, useless, fine ladies—never doing any one any good. If they take up good works, they can’t drop them entirely to wait on you. Gillian does give up a great deal, and it would be kinder to forbear a little, and not treat all she does as an injury to yourself.’
‘I only meant to get a rise out of her.’