“Oh,” said Mrs Leslie mendaciously, “we prefer walking. So I do,” she added as the carriage rolled away—“so I do, to going with her. She irritates me. She’s always in the right. But I think it was simply abominable of Arthur.”
“What does it matter?” said Claudia, with a fine display of indifference.
“It matters a great deal, because, of course, if I had known it was going to be so far, I should have brought the carriage.”
“Well, don’t let us toil to that mound. Let us go to the place we intended before. It is such a pretty day!”
“I dare say it is, but we didn’t come out to see the country.”
To her surprise, however, by dint of a little more pressure, Claudia carried her point, with the result that they saw nothing. But this she did not seem to mind, for she talked and laughed vigorously, in spite of many “I told you so’s” from Mrs Leslie.
“You are the oddest girl!” exclaimed that lady at last.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t appear to care to stand on your rights. Now, I think that Arthur has behaved shamefully.”
It is certain that she would not have spoken so imprudently if she had conceived it possible that a young girl of Claudia’s inexperience could seriously resent her lover’s conduct; she only considered it desirable to point out to her that she might be too easy with him, and that it would be better for her were she to assert herself. And the girl’s own anxiety to hide her wounds added to Mrs Leslie’s failure to understand her. She showed no disturbance.