Before I could speak, she burst out crying.
"Please, Miss," she wept, "I didn't see any harm on Saturday. But last night, when I went to bed, and thought about it ... oh, Miss Gertrude, I'm so miserable!" And she cried harder than ever.
In the end I sent her away consoled to the extent of my assurance that I didn't blame her in the least, and that the sole offender was Georgette. Also, I promised her that I wouldn't get Georgette into trouble.
At first I felt determined to give Georgette some very plain speaking in private. Yet how can I? How was Georgette to know that Susan hadn't been writing a common country love-letter to some common country sweetheart? What divination could teach Georgette that we had been writing a superfine letter to a milord? Georgette simply indulged her rural playfulness. And if the envelope was open for Georgette to put the flower in, it was also open for Susan to take it out.
That's the devil (I can't help saying it!) of this endless affair. Everybody keeps on giving me shocks and jumps, and yet nobody is ever to blame.
Not that much harm is done this time. I suppose Ruddington will go silly over the flower. He'll kiss it, and wear it next his heart by day, and lay it under his pillow by night, and worship it as a symbol of fresh mysticalities and exquisitenesses in his divine Susan. But he won't ring for the kitchen-maids and request the kind loan of a Language of Flowers. He won't so much as think of it that way. Even if he does, he will know that it is the letter and not the flower that he must obey.
I wonder what flower it is that means "Viens?"
Monday night.
I have been reading Ruddington's last letter over again. And although I began it with prejudice (being still nettled by Georgette's prank), it has affected me strangely.
Seen whole, I know the situation is farcical. It is a farce that may end in a tragedy. But as Ruddington sees it, with the wrong notion of Susan that I have helped to give him, it is a most high and sweet romance, all rose and gold.