"If you are hysterical, Alex, you had better go to bed."
Alex was only too thankful to obey. Still sobbing, she received the conventional good-night kiss which neither she nor her parents would have dreamed of omitting, however deep their displeasure with her, and left the room reproaching herself bitterly.
They had all been so cheerful before she spoilt it all, Sir Francis in unwontedly good spirits, and both of them pleased at the harmless amusement caused by Barbara's visitor.
"I spoil everything," Alex told herself passionately, and longed for some retreat where she might be the solitary victim of her own temperament, and need not bear the double pang of the vexation and grief which she inflicted upon others.
She did not go downstairs to dinner, and soon after eight o'clock Barbara came in and told her that there was supper in the schoolroom for both of them.
"Though after this," said Barbara importantly, "I shall be having dinner properly in the dining-room quite soon. They are going to let me put up my hair, and I think they will let me be presented at a late Drawing-room, though they won't promise. It was settled after you went upstairs."
"Are they vexed with me?" asked Alex dejectedly.
"Not particularly. Only disappointed."
Alex would rather have been told that they were angry.
She had not spirit enough left to snub Barbara, discoursing untiringly of all that she meant to do and to wear, until at last her younger sister remarked patronizingly: