"I think it's a shame you can't go with us. You're perfectly well?"
"No, Lady Canning's right—I have a headache. I was excited last night—at the hotel."
"Your color's so bright—perhaps you're feverish," observed Mrs. Stillwater, anxiously. "Indy, is it all right between you and Thurston?"
"Yes—mother—it's all right." Mrs. Stillwater looked at her with an anxious expression. But Indiana met her gaze hopefully. "Don't worry, mother," she said. "I love Thurston, and he loves me—so it's all right, isn't it?"
"Yes, my darling," sighed Mrs. Stillwater, greatly relieved.
"Even if—if things don't go as they should sometimes," said Indiana, wistfully, "they come right after a while—don't they—when people really love each other?"
"Nothing matters, so long as you love each other," Mrs. Stillwater assured her, with the wisdom of her long matrimonial experience.
Indiana watched them driving off, from the window—her mother and father in one hansom, Mrs. Bunker and Lord Stafford in another. The latter had manifested a desire to go shopping. He thought seriously of joining the party on their Parisian trip.
"Thurston," asked Lady Canning, in a very serious voice, "is there anything wrong between you and your wife?" Indiana, at the window, listened with every nerve.
"Nothing, mother," answered Thurston, purposely refraining from one glance at the little figure standing in the shadow of the curtains.