“Oh, Dreda, I—I have been waiting to tell you! The doctor said you were to be kept so quiet. It’s a—a— Guy gave it to me.”
“Guy?” The face on the pillow was all blank surprise and bewilderment. “What Guy?”
“Guy Seton—my Guy! It’s an engagement ring. Oh, Dreda, I have been longing to tell you. I’m so—happy!”
“You—are—engaged—to Guy Seton?” repeated Dreda blankly. Instead of the radiant smile which Rowena expected, her face hardened with displeasure, and she drew her brows together in a frown. “When? How? Why? I never dreamt of such a thing. It seems too extraordinary to be true.”
“Oh, Dreda, why? We think it so natural. We were made for each other. It seems as if we must always have been engaged. I thought you would be so pleased.”
“Well, I’m not,” declared Dreda decidedly. “Not at all. I don’t like it one bit. It upsets all my plans. I used to imagine that father would get all his money back and I should come home from school and go about with you—two fair young débutantes—always together, having such fun, sitting up afterwards in our bedrooms brushing our hair and talking over what had happened as they do in books. It will be so dull being alone with no one but Maud. Oh, Rowena, you are selfish!”
But Rowena only laughed, and dimpled complacently.
“Oh, Dreda, you are funny! You didn’t expect me always to stay at home, did you? I am the eldest; it is only natural that I should be married first, and if I am to be married, surely you would rather have Guy than anyone else! There is no one like him. All the men we have known are like puppets compared with him. He is so true, so strong, so noble. You ought to be proud, Dreda, that you are going to have him for a brother.”
“Well, I’m not,” declared Dreda once more. “It’s not a bit what I expected. I thought that first day he seemed so taken with me! I thought—at least, I didn’t think, but I should have thought if I had thought, do you understand?—that he would have wanted to be engaged to me! Not yet, of course, but he could have waited till I was grown up. And you were so huffy and stiff, and I raced across the fields to find mother, and took such trouble. It doesn’t seem fair!”
But Rowena only laughed again, without a trace of offence.