“You have none,” Mrs. Enderby told her calmly.
Lexy clenched her hands, and again was silent for a moment.
“I mean—” she began.
“I know very well what you mean,” said Mrs. Enderby. “You mean that you will keep faith with me no longer. I saw that. You wished to run off and tell your story to some one this afternoon. I stopped that. After this, I cannot stop you any longer. You will tell, but I think no one will listen to you. I shall deny it, and no one will be likely to listen to the word of a discharged employee.”
Lexy had grown very pale.
“I see!” she said slowly. “Then you’re going to—”
“You are discharged,” interrupted Mrs. Enderby, “because I do not like to have my daughter’s companion running into the park to meet a young man.”
“I see!” said Lexy again.
And nothing more. All the warmth of her anger had gone, and in its place had come an overwhelming depression. For all her sturdiness and courage, she was young and generous and sensitive, and those words of Mrs. Enderby’s hurt her cruelly.
She sat very still, looking out of the window. They had left the city now, and were on the Boston road. It was a sweet, fresh April day, and under a bright and windy sky the countryside was showing the first soft green of spring.