Susan is merely preoccupied. I ought to have divined it hours ago, if I hadn't been so disgustingly devoted to my own right worshipful ease and comfort. I've never thought about it before: but, without doubt, Susan's cousins and uncles and aunts are as much to Susan as my own cousins and uncles and aunts are to me. Indeed, I hope and expect that they are vastly more. I wonder what is wrong? Is Susan's cousin going to be married? Or has her aunt joined the Salvation Army? Or has her uncle tumbled off a hayrick? Perhaps it's something far worse. Anyhow, the poor soul must think me adorably sympathetic when I reward her admirable reticence by shrewing her for every insignificant lapse. And, after the loving fidelity with which she has served me and cherished me so much over and above the best-paid hireling's duty, she must find me most consolingly grateful.
I will make her tell me. Probably it is something wherein I can give a bit of practical help.
Later.
I've tackled Susan.
She didn't make it too easy. While she was brushing my hair, I said abruptly, but quite cordially:
"By the way, Susan, I sha'n't go to Sainte Véronique to-night. Gibson's gone to the village with a telegram. I've told Monsieur Dupoirier to meet me on Monday."
By peeping through my hair I could see Susan's face in the glass, although she couldn't see mine.
"Very well, Miss Gertrude," Susan answered.
She called me "Miss Gertrude" in precisely the tone she has always used ever since she first came to Traxelby, before Alice was married and when Grandmamma was still alive; and she went on brushing my hair without a pause. But I noticed that her cheeks, reflected in the glass, first paled and then flamed. I flung my hair from my eyes and looked up at Susan without ado.
"Susan," I said, "you are unhappy about something. You ought to have told me. Perhaps I could have helped you. In any case I would have been less exacting in my wants and less sharp in my complaints."