Wallace Sutherland stared at her. To him Christina Lindsay was merely one of the village girls, whom he had gone to school with, in boyhood days, some of whom waylaid him at the post office to walk home with him and all of whom were anxious for his favour. But suddenly one of them had detached herself from the crowd and stood out alone and indignant, displaying vigorously the very opposite of admiration or a desire to please.
"It was brutal to strike a poor animal like that," she continued, still smarting for Dolly and for her own self respect.
Wallace felt the blood rise to his face. He remembered that she had called him an idiot. "I suppose you are waiting for me to get out?" he replied stiffly. For answer Christina turned her horse's head, and the wheel moved aside invitingly for him to alight. Maggie and Bell broke into a duet of apologies and protestations.
"Oh, Mr. Wallace, don't go! Why Christine, how can you act like that? He didn't know Dolly was going to be so wild!" But Christina was feeling more for herself than for Dolly and was inexorable. Wallace jumped out, and raised his hat stiffly. But she did not even glance at him, and drove away quickly up the hill.
"Don't you girls know that he's just making fun of us?" she cried hotly. "He knew just as well as you did that it was all a put up job, and he was a big, stupid, cruel thing to hit Dolly that way, so now." Christina experienced a fierce relief to her outraged pride in thus being able to revile him.
Maggie Blair was always inclined to be dominated by Christina, and she looked ashamed. What if her mother were to discover what she had been doing? But Bell was inclined to argue the matter, and the drive up the hill was anything but pleasant. However, neither of the girls was very much disturbed. Christina had made herself obnoxious forever to Wallace Sutherland, while he would think none the less of them for being full of fun.
This was the thought uppermost in poor Christina's mind also, when she reached home and her anger cooled leaving only shame and regret. She had behaved rudely,—oh, abominably,—to the one person whom above all others she wished to please. He would despise her and never look at her again. If she had only acted with dignity, but she had called him an idiot! She was overwhelmed with shame when she remembered that.
She longed for the advice of Ellen or even Mary and she confided her troubles to her mother in the evening as they sat sewing on the veranda.
"Well, well," her mother said comfortingly, not dreaming how badly Christina was hurt, "indeed I would rather you acted as you did, than to be taking part in such norms. But I think you would be rather hard on the lad because he did not know how to drive."
It was poor comfort when your heart was broken, when your Dream Knight had actually sat by your side and ridden with you and you had treated him as though he were a kitchen knave. The only crumb of comfort Christina had was that which her pride provided. At least Wallace would never dream that she had been silly enough to set him up on a pedestal, dream about him at night, and watch for him by day. But it was a very small and cheerless comfort in a whole world of misery.