“You have no right to say such a thing, Ruth. I may be silly and foolish, but I won’t hear any one find fault with him, not even you!”
“Bravo, Queenie! but I wasn’t going to find fault with him exactly. I daresay he thinks it is all right enough, only—only that’s not my idea of a lover! Give him a little pull up, Queenie; scold him—if you can.”
Virginia coloured, trembled, and scarcely refrained from tears.
“You make me reproach myself, Ruth,” she said, “for being so silly and exacting. It ought to please me that Alvar is so good and kind, and that at last his people have found him out. It does—”
“Look!” exclaimed Ruth, pointing out of window. “Who comes there? And your gown is crumpled, and your necktie is faded, and you’re not fit to be seen! Run—run and adorn yourself!”
But Virginia hardly heard her, she was too eager to see Alvar for any delay, and, hurrying to the garden-door, she opened it, while Ruth recollected the awkwardness of an interview with Alvar and fled. But he was far too punctilious to come into the drawing-room with his wet coat, hat, and umbrella, and he waved his hand to Virginia and went round to the front door, where, in the hall, he met Ruth, and acknowledged her as he passed with a stately bow that nearly annihilated her.
Virginia had meant to be distant and reproachful, but her resolutions always melted in Alvar’s presence; he was so delightful to her that she forgot all her previous vexations. Demonstrative she never could be to him, but she contrived to say,—
“It is a long time since you were here, dear Alvar.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, “mi dona, too long indeed; but we have had people in the house, and Cherry is not strong enough to entertain them.”
“How is he?” asked Virginia, feeling, as she always did, as if rebuked for selfishness.