The breathless heat of the sort which from time to time enveloped that corner of New England, leaving the very leaves of the trees hanging limp and wilted, again settled down over the meadows and marshes, and in the midst of the afternoon appeared the rarest of sights—the indolent Sabine stirring in the burning sun. Olivia watched her coming across the fields, protected from the blazing sun only by the frivolous yellow parasol. She came slowly, indifferently, and until she entered the cool, darkened drawing-room she appeared the familiar bored Sabine; only after she greeted Olivia the difference appeared.
She said abruptly, “I’m leaving day after to-morrow,” and instead of seating herself to talk, she kept wandering restlessly about the room, examining Horace Pentland’s bibelots and turning the pages of books and magazines without seeing them.
“Why?” asked Olivia. “I thought you were staying until October.”
“No, I’m going away at once.” She turned and murmured, “I’ve hated Durham always. It’s unbearable to me now. I’m bored to death. I only came, in the first place, because I thought Thérèse ought to know her own people. But it’s no good. She’ll have none of them. I see now how like her father she is. They’re not her own people and never will be.... I don’t imagine Durham will ever see either of us again.”
Olivia smiled. “I know it’s dull here.”
“Oh, I don’t mean you, Olivia dear, or even Sybil or O’Hara, but there’s something in the air.... I’m going to Newport for two weeks and then to Biarritz for October. Thérèse wants to go to Oxford.” She grinned sardonically. “There’s a bit of New England in her, after all ... this education business. I wanted a femme du monde for a daughter and God and New England sent me a scientist who would rather wear flat heels and look through a microscope. It’s funny how children turn out.”
(“Even Thérèse and Sabine,” thought Olivia. “Even they belong to it.”)
She watched Sabine, so worldly, so superbly dressed, so hard—such a restless nomad; and as she watched her it occurred to her again that she was very like Aunt Cassie—an Aunt Cassie in revolt against Aunt Cassie’s gods, an Aunt Cassie, as John Pentland had said, “turned inside out.”
Without looking up from the pages of the Nouvelle Revue, Sabine said, “I’m glad this thing about Sybil is settled.”
“Yes.”