"Wyn, my dear child, listen to me," said Hilda, with authority. "You must go. Beggars musn't be choosers. Look here what she says—'to meet several people who may be of use to you.' Oh, my dear child, you have published one successful novel, but your fortune is not made yet, is it? Think of poor old Osmond—think how important it is that we should all do the best we can for ourselves. In my opinion you ought to go. What do you say, Jac?"
"I suppose you must; but I should like to let Lady Mabel know my opinion of her," said Jac, grudgingly.
"Be just," urged Hilda. "Lady Mabel very likely thinks that to take us out of our sphere and to plant us in hers for a few hours would be to unfit us for our work. I believe she is right. What good would it do us to sit at her table and talk to men who would only tolerate us because we were her guests? Answer me that."
Jac said nothing.
"You see I am right," went on Hilda, triumphing. "She merely thinks, as Aunt Anna does, that we had better remain in our humble station; and it would be simple cruelty of her to invite Osmond under existing circumstances. It would be tantamount to giving him encouragement, would it not?"
Osmond himself, somewhat to his sister's surprise, when he heard of the invitation, was most anxious that she should accept it. It seemed as if anything which brought the two families together, however indirectly, was pleasant to him. On the subject of himself and Elsa he, however, quite declined to talk; and this reserve of his was to Wyn a dangerous symptom. However, he was very quiet, and had not yet made the suggestion his sisters dreaded, namely, that one of them should go with him to call on Lady Mabel.
Sometimes Wyn almost hoped that he had realised the futility of his desires, since Elsa would not be twenty-one till the following Christmas, and it was madness to suppose that Mr. Percivale would not press his suit before then. Sometimes she dreaded that, as we say of children, he was quiet because he was in mischief—in other words, that he was corresponding with Elsa, or otherwise intriguing; though this was not like Osmond.
With surmises she was forced to rest content, however. The invitation to dinner was accepted, and then came wretched days of hesitation and cowardice—days when she endured continual fluctuations of feeling, at one moment feeling as though all her future hung on that dinner-party, at another that nothing should induce her to go when the time came.
She had not, however, very much leisure for reflection just at this period. One of the monthly magazines wrote to ask a serial story from her on very short notice, and she was obliged to devote her attention to the expansion and completion of an unfinished fragment for which, before the appearance of "Cicely Montfort," she had tried to find a publisher in vain. On the third day after the Miles' ball, as she returned from a walk, she found Claud's card in the hall. After the first moment of keen disappointment, she was glad that she had not seen him.
What use to feed a flame she was bent on smothering?