“We just made up our minds suddenly last night to come, and it has been a most lovely drive.”
“H’m. Millicent looks as if she had been through the war.”
“She has. We’ll tell you about it, later.”
Millicent appeared from the doorway, and Miss Frink noted the expression in Hugh’s face as he started up to meet her.
“I know you are both famished,” she said. “Let us go right in to lunch.”
Poor Millicent, with her double burden of apprehension and embarrassment, made a valiant attempt to eat, and Hugh saved her from the necessity of talking by keeping up a busy conversation with his aunt. As for Miss Frink, she was constantly fighting a sense of resentment.
“Just like me,” she thought. “Just because I didn’t plan it, I suppose I can’t approve it. Just because I can’t have him all to myself, I suppose I wouldn’t like it, whoever it was. Just like you, Susanna Frink. Just like you!”
When they rose from the table, Hugh spoke.
“We did come down here on an errand, Aunt Susanna. Is there some place where we can be entirely by ourselves?”