XXXVIII
Whatever the disabilities of General Norris there was not a suspicion of false shame about his hostess. She took the knob of the schoolroom door out of the young man’s hand and turned it for him.
“Miss Cass.” The flutelike note rang clear and free. “No wish to hurry you, Miss Cass, but the carriage is waiting.”
Miss Cass lifted her eyes calmly from her cheese.
Then she glanced at the watch on her wrist—an adorably neat watch on an adorably neat wrist—quite leisurely. “Thank you,” she said drily. It was really the driest “Thank you” George Norris had ever heard.
As she rose from the table with a deliberation which to Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson was rather infuriating, that lady observed the hat of the retiring governess. It was decidedly expensive. And her gloves and shoes could not possibly have been warranted by her salary. On the other hand George Norris observed none of these things. He was occupied far too much with their wearer. But above all, he was occupied with that sinister chorus in his brain, “Too late, too late!”
All was lost. And he had but himself to blame. In a kind of dull rage he stepped up to the open door to watch the lading of Miss Cass’s luggage on to the chariot. The mien of John Small was a comedy in itself. He at least was ready to welcome the departure of one who had kept him in his place as determinedly as he attempted to rise above it. As John Small hoisted the tin trunk on to the back of the dog cart he had the look of a man well satisfied.
That look was oddly reflected in the bearing of Miss Dolores Parbury, who at the chosen moment emerged from the morning room to speed the parting guest. There was a kind of wary triumph in it, a triumph not so much open and avowed as tacit and concealed. After all, Miss Cass was only the governess. But there the triumph was, at any rate, for the eye of George Norris, who suddenly found that it was more than he could bear. As he caught the slightly averted glance of Miss Cass that was like nothing so much as a sword half-sheathed, his heart went out to her. In defeat she was sublime. Faults she might have; her manner with young children might leave something to be desired, but au fond she was a fearless warrior and she had been endowed with so much charm that nature hardly seemed to be playing fair to the average members of Miss Cass’s sex in allowing her to treat it as a proprietary article.
The gallant George did not try to analyze the situation. He was a man of action, for one thing. Besides, there really was not time. This was the crisis of his fate, and events were moving with alarming rapidity. Before he could regain complete control of his mind, the inimitable Miss Cass was making her adieux.
With the faintly mischievous smile which invited intimacy and yet repelled it, she offered her hand.