“You know,” Cissy began, “it was so sweet of Emma Budd to ask me for the week’s end, though of course I don’t hunt—but with poor Freddy on his back since the pony-races, and all the horrid fuss with the plumbing—and the lawsuit, I’ve been really too anxious for pleasure.” She passed a plump hand over an unlined brow.
“But when Emma rang up yesterday to beg, and happened to let drop your name, I said, ‘If Mrs. Essington is going I really will make one effort.’” She beamed with candor.
Florence’s smile surmised that the name for which the effort had been made was more probably Fox Longacre’s. But Cissy’s complacence was impervious.
“It was a delightful surprise to hear you were going! You come to us so little!” she lamented.
“Who could resist the country in September?” Florence felt unable to add amenities to the already overcharged atmosphere.
“Oh, of course! I just crave the country!” Cissy agreed.
“Then the hunting—” Florence continued, aware that quite different reasons were expected of her—“Mrs. Budd makes her parties interesting with their variety.”
“Oh, yes—variety,” Cissy cut in. “Emma just craves it! Did you know she’s asked D. O. Holden—and he’s going?”
At Cissy’s round-eyed pause, Florence felt an inclination to laugh. Variety seemed to her the last word reminiscent of Holden. Looking back over the past six months, he appeared to her the one strong, unvarying, dominant, reiterated note in her resumed American experiences.
“Really!” she managed with gravity.