‘It meant,’ says Susan, with deep depression, ‘that they will all hate me.’
‘I almost wish I could believe that.’ He laughs again as he says this, and gives Bonnie’s ear a pinch, and follows his sister. Two minutes later, as Susan rejoins her own people at the little gate that leads by a short-cut to the Rectory, she sees him again, talking gaily, and handing into one of the carriages a tall and very handsome girl, dressed as Susan had never seen anyone dressed in all her life. It seems the very perfection of dressing. She lingers a moment—a bare moment—but it is long enough to see that he has seated himself beside the handsome girl, and that he is still laughing—but this time with her—over some reminiscence, as the carriage drives away.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
‘Anxiety is the poison of human life.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to go,’ says Susan, who is evidently terrified at the idea, crumpling up a small note between her fingers—a most courteous little note sent by Lady Forster this morning, Monday, the third of August, to ask Miss Barry’s permission for Susan to lunch at the Park. She—Lady Forster—had met her charming niece yesterday, and had induced her to promise to come to them on this, her brother’s birthday. And she hoped Miss Barry had not quite forgotten her, but would remember that she was quite an old friend, and let her come and see her soon.
It is a pretty little note, and delights Miss Barry; yet Susan finds no pleasure in it, and now sits glum and miserable.
‘Go!’ cries Betty. ‘I should think so. Oh, you lucky girl!’
‘Would you like to go, Betty, if it were your case?’—this wistfully. Oh that it were Betty’s case!
‘Is there anything on earth that would keep me away?’ cries Betty enthusiastically. ‘What fun you will have there! I know by Lady Forster’s eyes that you are safe to have a good time. I think’—gloomily—‘she might have asked me too.’
‘I wish she had,’ says Susan fervently. ‘If—I had one of you with me, I should not feel half so nervous.’