"Ah, well!" exclaimed Phil, with a laugh, leading the way. "I only hope you'll be able to make Mrs. Churchill believe it. It's my duty to prepare you for the worst, however."
"And our duty to be brave," said my comrade. "And fortune favors such, they tell us, mademoiselle."
Certainly I could not feel otherwise than grateful to my protector for his ingenious and powerful defence, as we appeared before the offended group at the door of the cloakroom. Though my aunt received it politely, I well knew the wrath that her knit brow portended, and Josephine's look of contempt was unmistakable. Mr. Rutledge had his visor down; no earthly intelligence could discover anything of his emotions through that impassive exterior. Even the captain was irritated; Phil was neutral, but Victor was my only friend.
"Good night," he whispered, as he put me into the carriage. "We'll finish that redowa at Mrs. Humphrey's to-morrow night."
I wished, with all my heart, it was to-morrow night, and all that I foresaw must intervene, safely past. The scolding was not to come before morning, I saw at once, and when my aunt, on our arrival at home, dismissed me to my room, it was with a cold, "I wish to have a few minutes' conversation with you after breakfast to-morrow."
With that dread before me—with a guilty sense of wrong-doing, and a bitter sense of shame, a humbled condemnation of myself, and an angry resentment toward others, the restless hours of that night offered anything but repose, anything but pleasant retrospect or anticipation.
CHAPTER XXII.
"And if some tones be false or low,
What are all prayers beneath
But cries of babes, that cannot know
Half the deep thought they breathe?"
KEBLE.
Mrs. Churchill understood, if ever any did, the art of reprimand. Without the least appearance of agitation herself, with a perfectly unmoved and stony composure, she managed to overawe and disarm the prisoner at the bar, whatever might be his or her offence, or shade or degree of guilt. Defence died on my lips at the dreaded interview, and I bore my sentence in silence, which was, a total seclusion from society after to-night—a return to the oblivion of the nursery and study. This ball at Mrs. Humphrey's was to be my last appearance in public till I should have learned how to behave myself. As I had accepted, it was proper I should go to-night, otherwise she would no means have allowed it.