The girl came forward and offered her hand. The doctor, this new doctor, took it, let it drop and said, "Good evening, Miss Esther," then turned to Jane with a politely worded message from Ann and Bubble.
"You can tell them I won't go," said Jane crossly. "They think they are smart. Just because—"
Esther slipped quietly from the room. In the hall outside she paused, breathless. She felt as if she had run a long way. Shame enveloped her, a shame whose cause she could not put into words. She only knew that she had, in the few seconds of that cold greeting, been profoundly humiliated. She quivered with the sting of unwarranted expectancy. But if this had been all, it would have been well. There was something else, some deeper pain surging through the smart of wounded pride, something which led her with blind steps into a dark corner of the stairs where she sat very quiet and still.
Through the open front door, she could see the bars of lamplight on the deserted veranda, and hear from the open windows of the living-room a hum of conversation in which Jane seemed to be taking a leading part. Then came the tinkle of the old piano and Mary's voice, singing, or attempting to sing, for it was soon apparent that her voice sagged pitifully on the high notes.
Presently Jane came out, banging the door. Jane's manners, Esther thought, were really very bad. She had probably banged the door because she had been sent to bed and she had probably been sent to bed because she had been saucy. Esther wondered what particular form her sauciness had taken, but when Jane called softly, "Esther!" she did not answer. She did not want to put Jane to bed to-night. The child flashed past her up the stairs and soon could be heard from an upstair window calling imperatively for Aunt Amy. But Aunt Amy, flitting through the dim garden wringing her hands, did not hear. Jane, much injured, went to bed by herself that night.
In the lamp-lit room there was no more music. The murmur of voices grew less distinct. There were intervals of silence. (Only very old friends can support a silence gracefully—but of course these two were very old friends.) Esther wondered, idly, how it would be best to explain her absence to her mother. Toothache, perhaps? Not that the excuse mattered. Mary never listened to excuses. She would be cross and fretful anyway and complain that Esther never treated her friends with proper courtesy. The best thing she could do would be to go to bed. But she made no movement to go; the moments ticked by on the hall clock unnoticed.
After a time, which might have been long or short, there was a stir in the room and her mother's voice called "Esther! Esther!"
The girl stood up, smoothed her white dress, slipped out on to the veranda and into the garden. From there she answered the call. "Yes, Mother?"
"Where are you? You sound as if you had been asleep. Doctor Callandar is going."
Esther came lightly up the steps.