“How can I help it?” I replied. “Is the room mine? Doesn’t it belong to Mrs Grant—I mean to my step-mother? How can I question any of her wishes? You come to our house, and you snuggle into her good favour; you worm yourself in, and you have got yourself invited, and I suppose—oh dear, I wish I wasn’t so cross!”
“If it were not such a very great thing I would take offence at your words, Rachel,” said Augusta, “and not come with you; but being such a magnificent thing, and so all-important to me, I will not take offence, even though you do compare me to a snuggler (I don’t quite know what the creature is), and even to a worm. I will come with you on the 24th to Hedgerow House, and when you look at my face you will perhaps realise that you are looking at perfect happiness—yes, Perfect Happiness; spell the words with capitals, for I have attained to that great height.”
“This is the Twopenny Tube,” I said. “Perhaps you would like to go back to your mother and make arrangements?”
“But where are you going?”
“I’m going to meet the Swan girls; they said they would be round the corner waiting for me.”
Augusta looked at me rather longingly, but I would not reply to her look.
“Good-bye,” I said. “I’ll try not to do anything to interfere with your bliss.” I left her. When I looked back she was already standing as one in a dream. I doubted if she would catch the next train in the Twopenny Tube, but I concluded that in the course of hours she would return to her commonplace mother.