So indeed it proved, for three minutes later, Roger Minot, a tall young man with hazel eyes and a firm chin, was shaking hands with the assembled group and explaining with considerable explicitness that he had happened to be in Baltimore on business and had also happened to call up Jack Amidon by telephone, who, in turn, had happened to be taking Sylvia and her guests on an excursion and had been kind enough to include himself in the invitation.
At all of which elaborate eloquence Suzanne had shrugged her displeasure and pointedly turned her back on the young barrister and devoted herself to the doctor. So much "happening" in the face of her expressed command deserved punishment and Suzanne was a firm disciplinarian where her lovers were concerned, especially the unfortunate Roger.
"Sylvia, you will have to sit with me to show me the way," ordered Jack in his usual "magerful" way, taking things into his own hands. "All aboard, everybody? Sure Madame Felicia won't go?" He turned to Sylvia to inquire.
"No, she said not. Felicia is not exceedingly devoted to picnics, and I suspect she has had more than enough of them this summer. Ready?" Sylvia turned back to her guests to ask and in a moment they were off down the hill.
The rich, vivid-hued Maryland fields and meadows lay indeed, "fair as the garden of the Lord" as the car sped out of Greendale beyond to the open country, along the smooth, hard, white pike. The afternoon shadows fell cool and long, and already there was a faint autumnal hint of crispness in the air and a mellow, misty gold to the sunshine. The mountains were outlined, palely blue, against the deeper azure of the cloudless September skies. Here and there a buzzard sailed and dipped above some wooded slope or a blue jay screamed and flashed out of an oak thicket.
Amidst the chatter of the rest Barbara fell silent and gave herself blissfully to the serene beauty of the outdoor world so utterly remote from that other world of din and traffic, of strenuous toil and keen competition in which she was to merge her own existence on the morrow. She was profoundly grateful for this last opportunity to feel the benign presence of Nature in field and sky and mountain. Her quick eye took in every patch of purple aster bloom, every scarlet glory of sumach and warm bronze hue of oaks. Even the corn shocks spreading their brown skirts as if indulging in some quaint minuet stamped themselves upon her inner vision to be remembered long after. She did not wish to talk, scarcely even to think. She desired only to feel--to let the benediction of the jewel-tinted day possess her spirit.
Suzanne, less susceptible to the mood of tranquillity, was bubbling over with gayety, her attention centering chiefly on Phil Lorrimer sitting in the seat opposite her. She chose to ignore Roger Minot's steady hazel eyes. He need not think his coming made any difference to her. Whether he came or went was a matter of supreme indifference. He might just as well have stayed in his grim little, trim little, office in Norton, Pa., as to have pursued a will-o'-the-wisp to Arden Hall so far as Suzanne was concerned. Some women were made unhappy by men. Suzanne had a cousin to whom this had befallen and had long since determined none should have power to hurt her. She meant to guard well the citadel which was Suzanne Morrison. If there were any casualties in the attempt to scale the walls the responsibility would not be on her head. Let men look to themselves. Suzanne had small compassion. Though she thoroughly enjoyed the stimulus of the society of the other sex and dearly loved to clash swords with them she wished nothing at their hands. She meant to show the world that a woman could stand alone, strive and conquer alone, fail if need be, alone, sufficient unto herself unto the end. There should be no doll's house for her, no more confining limits than life itself, wide as ether and deep as the sea, for her abiding place.
On the driver's seat were Jack and Sylvia, the latter a little silent. Though she had made no protest against her companion's rather high-handed disposition of herself it had not wholly pleased Sylvia. For one thing, she thought it assumed too much on the basis of that half promise of last night. She did not desire that Phil or indeed any of the party should infer that she and Jack must necessarily pair off like a couple of Noah's ark animals; moreover she considered it extremely thoughtless, not to say selfish, of Jack to leave Phil to the society of a group of almost strangers when his time in Greendale was so limited; for Phil was taking the midnight train back to New York having allowed himself little more than twenty-four hours for a holiday.
"Too bad everybody has to go away," Jack was saying. "May I come over often and help cheer your lonely hours?" His voice was lowered and his head bent toward Sylvia in an intimate fashion.
"No." The negative was sufficiently decisive to make the driver send a sharp glance at his companion.