"They? If you mean the Colonel——"
"I do."
Judith, looking up at her mother from the chaise-longue, could not have seen the radiant vision that she had adored as a child, when the spring and the Everards and the habit of evening dress all returned at once to Green River. Mrs. Randall's blue gown was the creation of a Wells dressmaker, but lacked the charm of earlier evening frocks, anxiously contrived with the help of a local seamstress, when the clear blue that was still her favourite colour had been her best colour, when there was a touch more pink in the warm white of her complexion, and before the tiny, worried line in her broad, low forehead was there to stay. But there was no reflection of these changes in her daughter's big, watching eyes.
"It will do him good not to like it," said Judith sweetly.
"Oh, nothing, Mamma. Is that the carriage? Don't be late."
Minna Randall looked down at her daughter in puzzled silence a moment, with the little line in her forehead deepening, then slipped to her knees beside her with a disregard for her new gown which was unusual, and put a caressing hand on her forehead, a demonstration which was more unusual still.
"Your head does feel hot," she said, "but to stay away from a dance at your age, just for a headache——"
"I went to one last night."
"A high school dance!"