“So I had,” answered Dolly. “I am behind time already, but I shall not be many minutes, and Miss MacDowlas is not like Lady Augusta. Listen; I believe I hear wheels at the door now. It must be later than I fancied.”
It was later than she fancied. As Mollie passed through the hall two gentlemen who were ascending the steps crossed her path, and, seeing the face of one who had not appeared to notice her presence, she started so nervously that she dropped her glove. His companion—a handsome, foreign-looking man—bent down and, picking it up, returned it to her, with a glance of admiring scrutiny which made her more excited than ever. She scarcely had the presence of mind to thank him, but rushed past him and out into the night in a passionate flutter of pain and sudden childish anger, inconsistent enough.
“He never saw me!” she said to herself, catching her breath piteously. “He is going to see Dolly. It is n't the party he cares for, and it is n't Miss MacDowlas,—it is nobody but Dolly. He has tried to get an invitation just because—because he cares for Dolly.”
She reached home in time for tea, arriving with so little breath and so much burning color that they all stared at her, and Aimée asked her if she had been frightened.
“No,” she answered, “but I ran half the way because I wanted to be in time.”
She did not talk at tea, and scarcely ate anything, and when Griffith came in, at about nine o'clock, he found her lying on the sofa, flushed and silent. She said she had a headache.
“I took Dolly her dress,” she said. “They are having a grand party and—Does Miss MacDowlas know Mr. Gowan, Griffith?”
Griffith started and changed countenance at once.
“No,” he answered. “Why?”
“He was there,” she said, listlessly. “I met him in the hall as I came out, but he did not see me. He must have tried to get an invitation because—well, you know how he likes Dolly.”