"Really," commented Margaret. "I shouldn't have thought it was necessary to soothe his ruffled feelings by giving him the idea that you've been watching at the window all the week for his visit."
"Oh, Margaret, you are unkind," and, since words would all too soon have melted into tears, Pauline rushed from the nursery away to her own white fastness at the top of the house. She did not pause in her headlong flight to greet her mother in the passage; nor even when she entangled herself in Janet's apron could she say a word.
"Good gracious, Miss Pauline," gasped Janet. "And only just now the cat went and run between my legs in the hall."
Pauline's bedroom was immediately over the nursery; but so roundabout was the construction of the Rectory that, to reach the one from the other, all sorts of corridors and twisting stairways had to be passed; and when finally she flung herself down in her small armchair she was breathless. Soon, however, the tranquillity of the room restored her. The faded blue linen so cool to her cheeks quieted all the passionate indignation. On the wall Saint Ursula asleep in her bed seemed inconsistent with a proud rage; nor did Tobit laughing in the angel's company encourage her to sulk. Therefore almost before Guy had taken off his wet overcoat, Pauline had rushed downstairs again; had kissed Margaret; and had put three stitches in the tail of the scarlet bird that occupied her tambour-frame. Certainly when he came into the drawing-room she was as serene as her two sisters, and much more serene than Mrs. Grey, who had just discovered that she had carefully made the tea without a spoonful in the pot, besides mislaying a bottle of embrocation she had spent the afternoon in finding for an old parishioner's rheumatism.
Pauline, however, soon began to worry herself again because Guy was surely avoiding her most deliberately, and not merely avoiding her but paying a great deal of attention to Margaret. Of course she was glad for him to like Margaret, but Richard out in India must be considered. She could not forget that promise she had made to Richard last June, when they were paddling upstream into the sunset. Guy was charming; in a way she could be almost as fond of him as of Richard, but what would she say to Richard if she let Guy carry off Margaret? Besides, it was unkind not to have a word for her when she was always such a good listener to his tales of Miss Peasey, and when they could always laugh together at the same absurdities of daily life. Perhaps he had felt that Margaret, who had been so critical over his curtains, must be propitiated—and yet now he was already going without a word to herself: he was shaking hands with her so formally that, though she longed to teaze him for wearing silk socks with those heavy brogues, she could not. He seemed to be angry with her ... surely he was not angry because she had hailed him from the window.
"What was the matter with Guy?" she asked when he was gone, and when everybody looked at her sharply, Pauline felt herself on fire with blushes; made a wild stitch in the tail of the scarlet bird; and then rushed away to look for the lost embrocation, refusing to hear when they called after her that Mother had been sitting on it all the afternoon.
The windows along the corridors were inky blue, almost turning black, as she stared at them, half frightened in the unlighted dusk: outside, the noise of the rain was increasing every moment. She would sit up in her bedroom till dinner-time and write a long letter to India. By candlelight she wrote to Richard, seated at the small desk that was full of childish things.
WYCHFORD RECTORY
OXON.
Tuesday.
My dear Richard,