During the fortnight which had elapsed since the date of her misadventure on the river, Darsie had had frequent meetings with the Percivals, and now felt on the footing of a friend rather than an acquaintance. Concerning the girls, there was no question in her mind. They were dears, not dears of the same calibre as Vie and plain Hannah, dears of a less interesting, more conventional description, but dears all the same, lively, good-tempered, and affectionate. The only brother was a far more complex character, with regard to whom Darsie changed her mind a dozen times a day. At one time he was all that was delightful, full of natural, boy-like good-comradeships at another he was a bored and supercilious dandy, looking down on schoolgirls from an intolerable height of patronage, and evidently priding himself on a blasé indifference. The present moment showed him in the latter mood, and Darsie’s lips curled as she watched and listened, and in her eyes there danced a mocking light. “Like a vain, affected girl!” was the mental comment, as her thoughts flew back to Harry and Russell, uncompromising and blunt, and to Dan Vernon in his shaggy strength. Even as the thought passed through her mind Ralph turned, met the dancing light of the grey eyes, and turned impatiently aside. He would not look at her, but he could feel! Darsie watched with a malicious triumph the flush creeping slowly over the smooth pale cheek, the hitch of the shoulders, the restless movement of the hands which betrayed the hidden discomfort. Presently some friends came forward to join the three ladies, when Ralph immediately joined her with an invitation which sounded more like a command—
“Come for a walk round the gardens!”
Darsie rose, nothing loath, conscious that she was about to be reproved, and finding an agreeable sense of support in her lengthened skirts, and the semblance of grown-up-ness which they imparted.
“What did you mean by staring at me like that?”
“Like which?”
“You know very well. You did it on purpose to annoy me, and make me uncomfortable.”
“Oh no, I didn’t! I didn’t do anything. It did itself. It was just the outward and visible expression of my inward and invisible thoughts.”
“Pretty middling disagreeable thoughts they must have been!”
“Humph! Not disagreeable exactly. Hardly strong enough for that. Just amused!”
“Amused!” The flush deepened on the lad’s cheek. Unwittingly Darsie had hit upon the most scathing of all indictments. To be an object of amusement to others! What could be more lacerating to the dignity of nineteen years. “I had no idea that I was being so funny. Will you have the goodness to point out what you found so amusing?”