All this time Georgia had been standing as still and rigid, and coldly white as monumental marble, hearing as one hears not this tirade, which Miss Maggie delivered while dancing up and down the veranda like a living whirligig, too full of spirits to be still for an instant. All Georgia heard or realized of it was that Richmond was coming here—here! under the same roof with herself. Her brain was giddy; a wild impulse came over her to fly, fly far away, to bury herself in the depths of the forest, where he could never find her or hear her name again.
Miss Maggie, having waited in vain for some remark from the governess, was turning away, with a muttered "How tiresome!" when Georgia laid her hand on her arm, and with a face that startled her companion, asked:
"When—when do they come?"
"Who? Dear me, Miss Randall, don't look so ghastly! I declare you're enough to scare a person into fits."
"Those—those—gentlemen."
"Oh, the dinner-party. Thursday week. Papa's waiting till Mr. Wildair comes from Washington."
Georgia turned her face away and covered her eyes with her hand, with a face so agitated, that Maggie's eyes opened with a look of intense curiosity.
"Why, Miss Randall, you are so queer! What on earth makes you look so? Did you know Mr. Wildair, or any of them?"
With a gesture of desperation, Georgia raised her head, and then, through all the storm of conflicting feelings within, came the thought that her conduct might excite suspicion, and, without looking round, she said huskily:
"I do not feel well, and I do not like strangers—that is all. Don't mind me—it is nothing."