"Shocking!"
"By appointment with her!"
"No!"
"And alone!"
"My dear, if there is more to come I shall be obliged to borrow your smelling salts, I fear."
"How can you laugh? Have you no sensibility? He actually told me of it! He was brazen, Judith! He said she was the most stunning creature he had ever laid eyes on! He said that to me!"
"If he said it to you it is a sure sign that his affections are not seriously engaged. If I were you I would take him back to Yorkshire and forget the whole affair."
"He won't go!" said Harriet, burying her face in her handkerchief. "He said so. We have had a terrible quarrel! I told him -"
Judith flung up her hands. "I can readily imagine what you told him! Perry is nothing but a heedless boy! I daresay he never dreamed of being in love with Lady Barbara. He thought of her as Charles's fiancée, he found her good company, he admired her beauty. And what must you do but put it into his head to fall in love with her! Oh, Harriet, Harriet, what a piece of work you have made of it!"
This was poor comfort for an afflicted lady, and provoked Harriet to renewed floods of tears. It was some time before she was able to regain any degree of calm, and even when her tears were dried Judith saw that no advice would be attended to until she had had time to recover from the ill-effects of her first quarrel with Peregrine. She persuaded her to take the air in an open carriage, and sat beside her during the drive, endeavouring to engage her interest in everyday topics. Nothing would do, however. Harriet sat with her veil down; declined noticing the flowers in the Park, the barges on the canal, or the pigeons on the steps of St Gudule; and was morbidly convinced that she was an object of pity and amusement to every passer-by who bowed a civil greeting. Judith was out of all patience long before the drive came to an end, and when she at last set Harriet down at the door of her lodging her sympathies lay so much with Peregrine that she was able to wave to him, when she caught sight of him presently, with a perfectly good will.