“My Shakespearian contemporary!” was her remark. “Well, Audrey, and how goes the Forest of Arden? And have you yet met Touchstone?”
Audrey colored very high at what she considered a direct impertinence.
“What are you doing here?” she said. “My mother does not know your mother.”
Sylvia gave a ringing laugh.
“I met this lady,” she said—and she pointed in Evelyn’s direction—“and she invited me here. I have had lunch with her, and I am no longer hungry. This is her room, is it not?”
“I should just think it is,” said Evelyn; “and I only invite those people whom I care about to come into it.” She said the words in a very pointed way, but Audrey had now recovered both her dignity and good-nature.
She laughed.
“Really we three are too silly,” she said. “Evelyn, you cannot mean the ridiculous words you say! As if any room in my father’s house is not free to me when I choose to go there! Now, whether you like it or not, I am determined to be friends with you. I do not want to scold you or lecture you, for it is not my place, but I intend to sit down although you have not the civility to offer me a chair; and I intend to ask again why Miss Leeson is here.”
“I came because Evelyn asked me,” said Sylvia; and then, all of a sudden, an unexpected change came over her face. Her pretty, bright eyes, with a sort of robin-redbreast look in them, softened and melted, and then grew brighter than ever through tears. She went up to Audrey and knelt at her feet.
“Why should not I come? Why should not I be happy?” she said. “I am a very lonely girl; why should you grudge me a little happiness?”