William Maubray could lose as good-humouredly as any fellow at other games, but he was somehow sore and angry here. He was spited by Violet’s partial dealing. Violet, how unnatural! Little Vi! his bird! his property, it seemed, leagued with that coxcomb to whack him about—to make a butt and a fool of him.
“I’m not going to play any more. I’ll sit down here, if you like, and do”—gooseberry, he was on the point of saying, for he was very angry, and young enough, in his wrath, to talk away like a schoolboy—“and do audience, or rather spectator; or, if you choose, Trevor, to take that walk over the Warren you promised me, I’m ready. I’ll do exactly whatever Miss Darkwell prefers. If she wishes to play on with you, I’ll remain, and if she has had enough of us, I’ll go.”
“I can’t play—there is not time for another game,” said Miss Vi, peeping at her watch. “My aunt will want me in a few minutes about that old woman—old Widow Grey. I—I’m afraid I must go. Good-bye.”
“Awfully sorry! But, perhaps you can? Well, I suppose, no help for it,” said Trevor.
And they walked slowly to the door, where Miss Vi pronounced the conventional invitation to enter, which was, however, wistfully declined, and Trevor and William Maubray set out upon their walk, and Miss Vi, in the drawing-room, sat down on the old-fashioned window-seat, and looked out, silent, and a little sulkily after them.
Miss Perfect glanced over her spectacles, with a stealthy and grave inquisitiveness, at the pretty girl.
“Well, dear, they went away?” she said, after a silence.
“Oh! yes; I was tired playing, and, I think, William wanted to go for a walk.”
“There seemed to be a great deal of fun over the game,” said Aunt Dinah, who wanted to hear everything.
“Yes, I believe so; but one tires of it. I do, I know:” and saying this, Violet took up her novel, and Aunt Dinah scrutinised her, from time to time, obliquely, over her crochet needles, and silence reigned in the drawing-room.