“She beckoned. Did you not see?”
“She beckoned to you; she would hardly venture on such a liberty with me. There is not the slightest approach to intimacy between us, and never will be, unless I have greatly mistaken her character.”
“Oh, well, you may very easily have done that, you know very little about her. She thinks very highly of you, I can assure you.”
“Stuff!” pronounced Graeme, with such emphasis that she startled herself, and provoked a hearty laugh from her brother.
“I declare, Graeme, I thought for the moment it was Harry that spoke for Mrs Gridley in one of her least tolerant moods. It did not sound the least like you.”
Graeme laughed, too.
“Well, I was thinking of Harry at the minute, and as for Mrs Gridley—I didn’t mean to be cross, Arthur, but something disagreeable that she once said to me did come into my mind at the moment, I must confess.”
“Well, I wish you a more pleasant subject for meditation on your way home,” said Arthur. “Wait till I see if there are any letters. None, I believe. Good-bye.”
Mrs Gridley did not occupy Graeme’s thoughts on her way home, yet they were not very pleasant. All the way along the sunny streets she was repeating to herself, “so absurd,” “so foolish,” “so impertinent of Mrs Grove,” “so disagreeable to be made the subject of gossip,” and so on, over and over again, till the sight of the obnoxious carriage gave her a fresh start again. The lady did not beckon this time, she only bowed and smiled most sweetly. But her smiles did not soothe Graeme’s ruffled temper, and she reached home at last quite ashamed of her folly. For, after all, it was far less disagreeable to call herself silly than to call Arthur foolish, and Mrs Grove impertinent, and she would not think about it any more. So she said, and so she repeated, still thinking about it more than was either pleasant or needful.
One night, Charlie Millar paid them a visit. He made no secret of his delight at their return home, declaring that he had not known what to do with himself in their absence, and that he had not been quite content or at his ease since he sat in Graeme’s arm-chair three months ago.