The footman had jumped from his place, and Mr. and Mrs. Price were descending from the carriage.
Indoors, Winnie felt her heart swell with a pain of pride. These were her parents. All these years she had been robbed of this!
"Oh, Mamma Farley! They've come! They've come! I thought I should never see them again!" Winnie's smooth fingers clutched Mrs. Farley's stiff nerveless palm. "What shall I do? It hasn't been my fault, has it, Mamma Farley?" Winnie's soft relentless gaze clung to her mother-in-law's face.
Mrs. Farley nervously desired to evade. Winnie made her feel guilty of the situation with which she had nothing to do.
"Now, dear! Now, dear! We won't talk about who's to blame. Could your mother have written the note she did if she intended to reproach you?"
"But Papa——And Laurence hasn't come back yet! He and Papa will quarrel again! You shouldn't have let him do this way, Mamma Farley! Oh, feel my hands! They're so cold!" Her eyes, large and dark, shone with a languid and deliberate excitement. She wished that Alice were in the room to see her. Wry thoughts of Laurence. Resentment in Winnie's mind was like grit in something that otherwise would have moved oiled.
"What must I do, Mamma Farley? Shall I go to the door?" Winnie wrung her hands.
"I think you ought to meet her first. She would like to speak to you before the rest of us come in."
"Oh, I can't! How can Laurence leave me like this?"
Mrs. Farley, called on again to explain Laurence, made some meaningless gestures—clasped and unclasped her hands. Her fingers, pressed hard as they intertwined, made her knuckles glow white.