I was amusing myself in this way, and laughing to myself under a grave face, when all at once I heard three words from the next window. Who said “By no means!” in that soft velvet voice, through which ran a ripple of silvery laughter? I should have known that voice in the desert of Arabia. And the next moment she moved away from the window, and I saw her face.
We stood fronting each other, Cecilia and I. That she knew me as well as I knew her, I could not doubt for an instant. For one moment she hesitated whether to speak to me, and I took advantage of it. Dropping the lowest courtesy I could make, I turned my back upon her, and walked straight away to the other end of the room. But not before I had seen that she was superbly dressed, and was leaning on the arm of Mr Parmenter. Not, also, before I caught a fiery flash gleaming at me out of the tawny eyes, and knew that I had made an enemy of the most dangerous woman in my world.
But what could I have done else? If I had accepted Cecilia’s hand, and treated her as a friend, I should have felt as though I were conniving at an insult to my father.
At the other end of the room, I nearly ran against a handsome, dark-haired girl in a yellow satin slip, who to my great astonishment said to me,—
“Well played, Miss Caroline Courtenay! I have been watching the little drama, and I really compliment you on your readiness and spirit. You have taken the wind out of her Ladyship’s sails.”
“Hatty!” I cried, in much amazement. “Is it you?”
“Well, I fancy so,” said she, in her usual mocking way. “My beloved Cary, do tell me, have you brought that delicious journal? Do let me read to-night’s entry!”
“Hatty!” I cried all at once. “You—”
“Yes, Madam?”
If she had not on my best purple scarf—my lost scarf, that my Aunt Kezia could not find! But I did not go on. I felt it was of no earthly use to talk to Hatty.