After a few preliminary remarks, she asked Mrs. Loring if she were stopping in the neighbourhood.
“Yes, I am staying at Stoke Revel for a short time,” Robinette replied; “Mrs. de Tracy is my aunt, or at least I am Admiral de Tracy’s niece.”
Her companion did not seem to take the 204 least interest in this part of the information, only when Stoke Revel was mentioned she looked around suddenly as if surprised.
They talked upon indifferent subjects, while Robinette, as she watched Miss Meredith, was saying a good deal to herself, although she only spoke aloud about the weather and the Devonshire scenery.
“I will be just, if I can’t be generous,” she thought. “She has (or she must once have had) a fine complexion. I dare say she is sincere enough; she may be sensible; she might be good-humoured,––when pleased.”
“There is going to be a shower,” said Miss Meredith, “but I’ve nothing on to spoil,” she added, glancing at Robinette’s hat.
Sitting there on the bench, hearing the spitting rain upon the water below them and watching the leaden mists that slowly gathered over the landscape, Robinette fell upon a moment of soul sickness very unusual to 205 her. Miss Meredith too was silent, absorbed in her own thoughts.
“If she had looked even a little different it would have been so much easier to explain,” thought Robinette. Then suddenly she glanced up. She saw that her companion’s face had softened, and changed. There was a look,––Robinette caught it just for one moment,––such as a proud angry child might have worn: sulky, hurt to the heart, but determined not to cry. Instantly a chord was struck in Robinette’s soul. “She has suffered, anyway,” she thought. “May I be forgiven for my harsh judgment!”
With a shiver she drew her wrap about her shoulders, and Miss Meredith turned towards her. The expression Robinette had noticed passed from the high-coloured face and left it as before, self-complacent and slightly patronizing. “You seem to feel cold,” she said. “I never do; which is rather unfortunate, as I’m just going out to India!”