“The bridesmaids’ dresses were very nice, I think,” she said, with amiable irrelevancy. “I was afraid they sounded trying. But it has been very pleasant altogether, hasn’t it? I wish we were going to stay in town. We had a shocking crossing.”
A keen attention had sprung into Mrs. Romayne’s eyes, and for an instant it seemed as though all the society gaiety died from her face, leaving exposed the hard, almost fiercely determined, foundation on which it was imposed. Then the foundation disappeared again.
“To stay in town!” she echoed lightly. “Why, are you not going to stay in town, dear Mrs. Pomeroy?”
“Unfortunately not,” was the answer. “My sister who lives in Devonshire—I think you have heard me speak of her?—is ill, and has begged me to go and see her. So we are going for a week or ten days, I am sorry to say.”
“I am sorry to hear,” said Mrs. Romayne, with pretty concern. “Just at the beginning of the season, too. It’s rather hard on poor Maud, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is hard on poor Maud, isn’t it?” was the undisturbed response.
There was a moment’s pause, and then under her paint a burning colour crept up to the very roots of Mrs. Romayne’s hair, and her eyes shone.
“My dear Mrs. Pomeroy,” she began gaily, but speaking rather quickly, too, and in a higher pitch than was usual with her, “don’t you remember, months ago, promising to lend me Maud for a little while? This is the very opportunity. Of course,” she lowered her voice a little, “I wouldn’t propose it if you did not know quite as well as I do how the land lies. But, as I think we two old mothers are of one mind on that point, I shan’t scruple. Let Maud come to me, if she will, while you are in Devonshire. Oh, of course it needn’t mean anything—it’s an old promise, you know, and she and I are great friends on our own account. Talk of the angels!” she went on gaily, nodding towards a slim, white figure coming towards them with Julian in its immediate wake.
Maud Pomeroy was looking as pretty and as proper as she had looked every day since she had emerged from the school-room, but there was a little flush on her face which was not habitual to her. She returned Mrs. Romayne’s greeting with the grateful cordiality so pretty from a girl to an older woman, evinced as was her wont more by manner than by speech; and indeed Mrs. Romayne gave her little time for speech.
“Your mother has been telling me of this dreadful Devonshire business!” she said. “And I’ve had what I flatter myself is a happy thought! I want you to come to me, Maud, dear, while your mother is away. You know you promised ages ago to let yourself be lent to me for a little while, and this is the very opportunity, isn’t it?”