“Oh, thank you; yes, I will,” said Prissie. She began a garbled account Hammond looked at her face and guessed the truth. The miseries of her present position were depriving the poor girl of the full use of her intellect. At last he ascertained that Priscilla’s all-absorbing present anxiety was to be in time for the half-past six dinner at St. Benet’s.
“I know we’ll be late,” she said, “and I’ll have broken the rules, and Miss Heath will be so much annoyed with me.”
Hammond volunteered to look for Miss Merton.
“Oh, thank you,” said Prissie, the tears springing to her eyes. “How very, very kind you are.”
“Please don’t speak of it,” said Hammond. “Stay where you are. I’ll soon bring the young truant to your side.”
He began to move about the drawing-rooms, and Prissie from her hiding-place watched him with a world of gratitude in her face. “Talk of my stirring from this corner,” she said to herself, “why, I feel glued to the spot! Oh, my awful muddy boots. I daren’t even think of them. Now I do hope Mr Hammond will find Miss Merton quickly. How kind he is! I wonder Maggie does not care for him as much as he cares for her. I do not feel half as shy with him as I do with everyone else in this dreadful—dreadful room. Oh, I do trust he’ll soon come back, and bring Miss Merton with him. Then, if we run all the way, we may, perhaps, be in time for dinner.”
Hammond was absent about ten minutes; they seemed like so many hours to anxious Prissie. To her horror she saw him returning alone, and now she so far forgot her muddy boots as to run two or three steps to meet him. She knocked over a footstool as she did so, and one or two people looked round, and shrugged their shoulders at the poor gauche girl.
“Where is she?” exclaimed Prissie, again speaking in a loud voice. “Oh, haven’t you brought her? What shall I do?”
“It’s all right, I assure you, Miss Peel. Let me conduct you back to that snug seat in the window. I have seen Miss Merton, and she says you are to make yourself happy. She asked Miss Heath’s permission for you both to be absent from dinner to-day.”
“She did? I never heard of anything so outrageous. I won’t stay. I shall go away at once.”