Nina had been her own mistress for several delicious weeks, and to have any sort of restriction again was very unpalatable to her. Harriet could almost have laughed at her discomfiture, although she was sorry for her, too. Nina smiled and listened with notable effort; Harriet knew she was chagrined.
She sulked all the way home, and Madame Carter, meeting them at Crownlands, gazed rather stonily at the newcomer, granting her only the briefest greeting. But oh, how homelike and welcoming the beautiful place, mantled in snow, looked to Harriet's eyes. The snapping fires, the warmth and fragrance of the big rooms, and the very obvious welcome of the maids, all were enchanting to her. Her first duty was to make a brief tour below stairs, after which she went up to her own room.
When they returned from Huntington in the fall, she and Nina at Richard's suggestion had taken Isabelle's handsome rooms, turning both into bedrooms, and sharing the dressing rooms and bath that joined them. It was here that Harriet found Nina awaiting her, still with her hat on, and loitering with obvious discomfiture. There had been no actual changes in her room except that the personal touch was gone. Bottomley had put her bags here, and Nina spoke first of them.
"You've got a new suitcase?"
"Yes, I got that this morning; isn't it stunning?" Harriet eyed its shiny blackness with satisfaction. "I had to get a gown or two," she added, "and some little things! We've been so quiet at Mrs. Davenport's that I hadn't any new clothes. Pip was ill, you know."
"Miss Harriet!" Nina said with a rush. "You're so sweet about things like this, I wonder if you will mind taking the yellow guest room--it's really much larger--and leaving this room? You see when I have friends--"
Harriet, at the dressing table, had raised her hands to remove her hat. Like any general, she realized the crisis of the apparently unimportant moment, and met it by instinct.
"But you have an extra bed, besides the couch, in your room, Nina!"
Nina cleared her throat, threw back her head, regarded Harriet between half-closed eyelids in a manner Harriet realized was new, and drawled:
"I know. But if you would be so very kind---?"