“Better take something out. If you make it so full, it may burst half-way. How would you like that?”
“Not much; but better than leaving anything behind. It wouldn’t dare to burst after costing so much money. There! It’s done. You’re a pretty substantial weight, my dear. Now then for lunch and a rest; I’ve had a terrific morning.”
Darsie rose to her feet and stood for a moment before the mirror, putting a tidying touch to hair and dress. She was a tall, slim girl, nearly a head taller than the more substantial Clemence, and the easy grace which characterised her movements was the first thing which attracted an unaccustomed eye. Even Clemence, with perceptions dulled by custom, felt dimly that it was an agreeable thing to watch Darsie brush her hair and shake out her skirts, though in another person such acts would be prosaic and tiresome. The crisp hair needed nothing but a brush and a pat to settle itself into a becoming halo of waves, and the small face on the long white neck had a quaint, kitten-like charm. Clemence looked from the real Darsie to the reflected Darsie in the glass, and felt a sudden knife-like pang.
“Oh, how I hate you going! How dull it will be. Why couldn’t you be content to stay at home instead of taking up this Newnham craze? I shall miss you hideously, Darsie!”
Darsie smiled involuntarily, then nobly tried to look sad.
“I expect you will, but one grown-up at home is as much as we can afford, and there’ll be lovely long vacs. You must think of those, and the letters, and coming up to see me sometimes, and term time will pass in a flash. I’ll be back before you realise that I’m gone.”
Clemence pouted in sulky denial.
“Nothing of the sort. It will seem an age. It’s easy to talk! People who go away have all the fun and excitement and novelty; it’s the poor stay-at-homes who are to be pitied. How would you like to be me, sitting down to-morrow morning to darn the socks?”
“Poor old Clem!” said Darsie lightly. A moment later, with relenting candour, she added: “You’ll like it a lot better than being examined by a Cambridge coach! So don’t grouse, my dear; we’ve both got the work we like best—come down to lunch, and let’s see what mother has provided for my go-away meal!”
Darsie slid a hand through Clemence’s arm as she spoke and the two sisters squeezed down the narrow staircase, glad in their English, undemonstrative fashion of the close contact which an inherent shyness would have forbidden except in this accidental fashion. Across the oil-clothed passage they went, into the red-walled dining-room, where the other members of the family waited their arrival.