“Oh, yes; was I speaking too loud? I wouldn’t vex you for anything.”
“Pardon me; you are still speaking a little loud.”
“Oh!” Poor Prissie fell back, her face crimson. “Please say anything you wish,” she presently piped in a voice as low as a little mouse might have used.
“What I have to say is simply this,” said Hammond: “You will gain nothing now by rushing off to St. Benet’s. However hard you struggle, you cannot get there in time for dinner. Would it not be best, then, to remain here quietly until Miss Merton asks you to accompany her back to the college? Then, of course, it will remain with you to pay her out in any way you think well.”
“Thank you; perhaps that is best. It is quite hopeless now to think of getting back in time for dinner. I only hope Miss Merton won’t keep me waiting very long, for it is very, very dull sitting here, and seeing people staring at you.”
“I would not look at them if I were you, Miss Peel; and, if you will permit me, I shall be only too pleased to keep you company.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Prissie. “Then I sha’n’t mind staying at all.”
The next half-hour seemed to pass on the wings of the wind.
Priscilla was engaged in an animated discussion with Hammond on the relative attractions of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey;” her opinion differed from his, and she was well able to hold her ground. Her face was now both eloquent and attractive, her eyes were bright, her words terse and epigrammatic. She looked so different a girl from the cowed and miserable little Prissie of an hour ago that Rosalind Merton, as she came up and tapped her on the shoulder, felt a pang of envy.
“I am sorry to interrupt you,” she said, “but it is time for us to be going home. Have you given Mr Hammond his message?”