"Oh, I hoped you would have dusted this room yourself, just while I was away," replied Virginia, with a sigh, casting her housewifely eye upon the tarnished silver. It was a room which would take a good hour a day to keep in proper order.
"Well, Virgie, have you any news for me?" asked Mrs. Mynors presently, in her voice of tantalising sweetness.
Virginia raised her eyes, puzzled by something in the voice. "News?" she answered wonderingly. "Nothing very special. I told you most of it in my letters. The flying yesterday was most interesting—quite worth staying for."
Mrs. Mynors sat meditatively, while her daughter left the room, went upstairs, found indoor shoes and brought them down. She then carefully pulled the pins from the becoming hat and removed it, her mother sitting in calm acquiescence the while. Mrs. Mynors was uneasy. Her reading between the lines in Virginia's innocent letters had certainly led her to conclude that Gerald Rosenberg meant to marry the girl. Had she herself made a fatal mistake in sending that letter to Gerald's father before the matter had been clinched? She had felt doubts, but her dire need had driven her on. Now she was wondering how to find words in which to convey to Virginia the blow which had descended.
Virginia always divided the money. Each quarter she had apportioned to her mother the sum for the interest on the mortgage. There had always been something else on which that money must be spent.
What would Virgie say when she knew that Lissendean had gone, vanished; that they would never revisit it; that Tony could never come into his inheritance?
Far though she was from any feeling of self-blame, she yet was conscious of discomfort as she looked at her daughter's unsuspecting face.
It was easy to decide not to spoil Virgie's first evening at home by bad news. Leaving her daughter to carry her hat, gloves and sunshade to the room above, she settled herself luxuriously by the open window, with her feet up, and plunged into temporary forgetfulness in the pages of a very exciting novel.
Meanwhile—the outside porter proving better than his word—the trunk arrived and was unpacked. The enraptured Pansy found herself mistress of a doll of almost inconceivable beauty, with jointed limbs, and a body that could be washed in real water. Mims had added a chest of drawers, and various articles of costume. The dressing and undressing of dolls had always been the little cripple's one joy. And never had she hoped to possess such a doll as this.
Then Tony came home, hot and exultant, looking such a fine boy in his flannels and blazer. His team had beaten the other after a hard fight, during which, of course, the umpire had given an l.b.w., grossly unfair and in favour of the rival eleven.