So had she reddened, suddenly, when Althea had come to tell her of her engagement to Perceval Scrope. So had she looked when standing on the doorstep as Althea and Perceval started for their honeymoon, just after there had taken place a strange little scene—for Scrope, following the example of Thomas Panfillen, who had insisted on what he called saluting the bride, had taken Panfillen's wife into his arms and kissed her.
"Althea"—Joan took the younger woman's hand in hers and held it, closely, as she spoke, "don't be frightened,—but Perceval is here, ill,—and I've sent for you to take him home."
"Ill?" A look of dismay came over Althea's face. "I hope he's not too ill to speak to-night—that would be dreadful—he'd be terribly upset, terribly disappointed!" Even as she spoke she knew she was using words which to the other would seem exaggerated, a little childish.
"I'm sure he'd rather you took him home, I'm sure he'd rather not be found——" Mrs. Panfillen hesitated a moment, and again she said the words "'ill', 'here'," and for the first time Althea saw that there was a look of great pain and strain on Joan's worn, sensitive face.
"Of course not!" said the young wife quickly. "Of course he mustn't be ill here; he must come home, at once."
Althea's pride was protesting hotly against her husband's stopping a moment in a house where he was not wanted—pride and a certain resentment warring together in her heart. How strange London people were! This woman whom folk—the old provincial word rose to her lips—whom folk whispered was over-fond of Perceval—why, no sooner was he ill than her one thought was how to get rid of him quietly and quickly!
Mrs. Panfillen, looking at her, watching with agonised intensity the slow workings of Althea's mind, saw quite clearly what Perceval's wife was feeling, saw it with a bitter sense of what a few moments ago she would have thought inconceivable she could ever feel again—amusement.
She went across to the window and opened it. As if in answer to a signal, the little iron gate below swung widely open: "Bolt has gone to get a cab," she said, without turning round; "we thought that it would be simplest. The old cabman knows us all—it will be quicker." She spoke breathlessly, but there was a tone of decision in her voice, a gentle restrained tone, but one which Althea knew well to spell finality.
"But where is Perceval?"
Althea looked round her bewildered. She noticed, for the first time, that flung carelessly across two chairs lay his outdoor coat, his gloves, his stick, his hat. Then he also had come in by the park side of the house?