Florimel unbraided her black hair and dropped it over the back of her chair, rocking furiously to fan it.
“We’ve been driving and driving, hours, and you and Jane and I were miserable, miserable-minded, because we were so sorry to think Lord Kelmscourt had to go away and be a rejected suitor. Rejected suitors are perfectly tragic in stories! We could hardly answer when he talked to us, and we all acted as if we were babies, standing on one foot with our thumbs in our mouths, we were so awkward and embarrassed. And here was the rejected suitor driving away, as calm as milk, and madrina chatting with him, easy and natural! She was not a bit embarrassed; neither was the R. S.! Of course Englishmen are supposed to be just like Gibraltar, never showing what they feel. But I still think it’s great to be grown up. It carries you through things. I’d love to be able to refuse to marry some one, and then act the next day as if he’d dropped in for tea, and I happened to be out of it! Not so upset; I’ve seen people much more embarrassed when they had company, and something to eat was spoiled, than madrina was to-day! It’s being grown up, and out in society.”
Jane stood in the doorway laughing; she, too, had on her kimono, and she was wandering and combing her hair, after her incorrigible habit of dressing on the march.
“You’ll have to see that you change as you grow up, Mel, or you’ll never hide your feelings,” she advised. “Well, I’m as sorry as I can be that nice Lord Kelmscourt couldn’t stay—some other way! If only he could have been our chauffeur, a chauffeuring friend, or a friendly chauffeur, living near enough to spend lots of evenings with us, like Mr. and Mrs. Moulton! He’s splendid. And the clever little points he taught me in driving to-day! You can see he’s one of those well-trained, all-around people who do everything well. I’m sure he’s very fond of madrina; he was so willing to give her up.”
“Of all reasons for thinking he liked her a lot!” cried Florimel.
Jane nodded her head hard. “You couldn’t tell how unwilling he felt, but the quietly willing way he acted, I mean,” she persisted. “A cheap little liking might make a row, but a big, deep liking would consider madrina, and not make her uncomfortable.”
Mary raised her head, and poked her pillow into a bunch, as she regarded Jane with her customary admiration.
“I wonder if you won’t be a novelist instead of a singer or actress, Janie,” she said. “You do see things!”
“Maybe I’ll be a telescope,” said Jane, turning on her heel and swinging down the hall, singing foolishly:
“Jane could see when she’d look, so she wrote a great book,