“And you would not mind going away to-morrow, and never seeing Brook Johnstone again?” asked Mrs. Bowring, quietly.
“I? No! Why should I?”
Clare meant to speak the truth, and she thought that it was the truth. But it was not. She grew a little paler a moment after the words had passed her lips, but her mother did not see the change of colour.
“I’m glad of that, at all events,” said the elder woman. “But I won’t go away. No—I won’t,” she repeated, as though spurring her own courage.
“Very well,” answered the young girl. “But we can keep very much to ourselves all the time they are here, can’t we? We needn’t make their acquaintance—at least—” she stopped short, realising that it would be impossible to avoid knowing Brook’s people if they were stopping in the same hotel.
“Their acquaintance!” Mrs. Bowring laughed bitterly at the idea.
“Oh—I forgot,” said Clare. “At all events, we need not meet unnecessarily. That’s what I mean, you know.”
There was a short pause, during which her mother seemed to be thinking.
“I shall see him alone, for I have something to say to him,” she said at last, as though she had come to a decision. “Go out, my dear,” she added. “Leave me alone a little while. I shall be all right when it is time for luncheon.”
Her daughter left her, but she did not go out at once. She went to her own room and sat down to think over what she had seen and heard. If she went out she should probably find Johnstone waiting for her, and she did not wish to meet him just then. It was better to be alone. She would find out why the idea of not seeing him any more had hurt her after she had spoken.