Now, this was exactly what Mrs. Van Rensselaer wanted her to say, and, moreover, had been counting upon. If Dawn had assented to going down, her step-mother would have found some excuse for keeping her upstairs. But she did not wish the girl to know it, so she assumed a look of mild disapproval.
"It's very queer for you not to want to meet your mother-in-law and father-in-law, and all your new sisters——"
Dawn shuddered more violently, and clasped her hands quickly over her eyes, as if to shut out the unpleasant vision of her new kindred.
"Oh, no, no, please!" she besought, looking up at her step-mother with more earnest pleading than she had ever shown her before.
"Well"—grimly—"I suppose it can be managed, but you'll want to have a talk with him that's so soon to be your husband——"
"Oh, no, no!" cried Dawn wildly. "I do not want to see him. I cannot talk with him now. I could never, never, go through that awful ceremony afterward if I were to see him now. I should run away or something. I'm sure I should. I don't want to see anybody until I have to."
"He'll think it very strange. I don't see how I can explain it. He's very anxious to talk to you. He sent you a message last night, but you were asleep."
So that was what the knock had meant! Dawn was glad she had not answered it.
"Oh, please, please," she said, clasping her hands in the attitude of pleading, "couldn't you just explain to him that I'm a very silly girl, but I should like just these last few minutes to myself. Tell him that if he has any message, please to tell it to you, and to let me be by myself now. Tell him he doesn't know how a girl feels when she is going to stop being a girl. Tell him, please, that if he has any sympathy for me at all, he won't ask to see me now. It is only a little while, and I want it to myself."
Her great pleading eyes met Mrs. Van Rensselaer's cold gaze, and her whole slender figure took an attitude of intense wistfulness. The elder woman, cold and unloving as she was, could not but acknowledge that the girl was very beautiful. Her heart might have been touched more had it not been for the gnawing thought that this child's mother had been the canker-worm which had blighted the step-mother's whole life.