She was standing alone before her mirror, setting the last pearl comb in place, when her cousin came into the room.
"You look as if you were happy enough," Isabel commented fretfully. "I don't believe you care at all about Corrie's going away. Of course you don't care about me. What are you putting on that old-fashioned thing for?"
Flavia gravely turned her large eyes upon the other girl; the unjust attack fell in harsh dissonance with her own mood of hushed anticipation. She could not have robed herself for her wedding with more serious care and earnest thoughtfulness than she had used in preparing to receive Gerard to-night. This was no time for coquetry; as he came for her, she would go to him, she knew, without evasion or pretense to harass his weakness. She shrank, wincing sensitively, from this rough criticism, but every member of the family had learned not to reply to the new Isabel's peevish tartness.
"It was my mother's," she explained, to the last inquiry, tenderly lifting the long chain of pearl and amber beads ending in a lace-fine pearl cross. Never could she attempt to tell her cousin the blended motives from which she had chosen to wear this rosary. "And her mother's and again her's. It is very old Spanish work. Shall we go down?"
"What for? It is not time for dinner. Oh, Martin told me there was a messenger waiting to deliver a letter, just now, as I came here."
The color flared up over Flavia's delicate face.
"A messenger, Isabel?"
"Yes, who would not send up his message. I told Martin that we would ring."
Flavia slowly wound the chain around her throat. There was no escape from Isabel's insistent companionship, she realized.