"My good woman, kindly tell me whether this is Oak Knoll."
"Yes, it is," said Miss Finch, reduced by the lorgnette to abject helplessness.
The driver growled something from the front seat. Miss Finch understood him to say, "Next time maybe you'll believe me."
"And is Mr. Forbes, Mr. Burton Forbes, spending the summer here?" The incredulity was as marked as before and as disagreeable.
"Yes'm," replied Miss Finch faintly. "He is."
The driver growled again. The substance of his remark, as far as Miss Finch could grasp it in her confusion, seemed to be, "What did I tell you?"
But it mattered little to Miss Finch what the driver had to say. A deplorable certainty absorbed her. The women were preparing to alight. There was a trifling delay, owing to the fact they seemed to expect the driver to assist them, while he assured them that he did not dare to leave his horses. As the dejected steeds stood with hanging heads, apparently resigned to the prospect of dying in their traces, the indignation of the two passengers was amply justified.
They were out at last, and while the elderly lady haughtily paid the driver, Miss Finch's distended eyes were taking a rapid inventory of the younger. She was extremely handsome, Miss Finch saw, tall and slender and tremendously striking in her black and white costume. She stood looking about her with an evident disdain which the little spinster might have resented, had she not been chilled by an indefinable fear.
When the beautiful stranger spoke, her remark was a complete surprise. "Miss Kent, I suppose."
Zaida Finch became aware of an inexplicable hostility in the other's manner, of an arrogance that bordered on insolence. She found she was being scrutinized contemptuously. The little drab nonentity felt in her veins an unprecedented stirring of resentment.