“Have you hidden my brooch or have you not? Answer me this moment! I have not time to waste.”
Nancy rose to her feet and selected a hair ribbon from a drawer with an air of unruffled composure.
“I’m sorry, but I find myself unable to oblige you. If I am the person who has been playing tricks with your things all this time, you can hardly expect me to prove my guilt out of my own mouth. On the other hand, if I am innocent—”
“Well?”
“Then I should naturally be too proud and wounded to vindicate my honour!”
Dreda stood irresolute—swayed one moment towards penitence, the next to anger. From the farther end of the room Susan mutely gesticulated appeals for peace. What would have happened next it is impossible to say, for at that moment a knock sounded at the door, and a voice cried:
“Miss Saxon. Wanted, please! In the drawing-room.”
No need to inquire the meaning of that summons! Dreda flew breathlessly downstairs, and in the moment of opening the drawing-room door beheld her four dear visitors standing in the alcove made by a rounded window—father, mother, and two sisters. Such darlings—such darlings; so infinitely more attractive than the other relations with whom the room was full! Father was handsomer than ever, mother so sweet and elegant, Maud was for the moment quite animated, while Rowena in her blue dress and ermine furs was a beauty—so dazzling a beauty, and withal so sweet, and bright, and womanly in expression, that the schoolgirl sister was breathless with admiration. When the first greetings were over and the parents were talking to Miss Drake, Dreda slipped her hand within Rowena’s arm, and gave it a rapturous squeeze.
“Ro, you are lovely! Everybody is staring at you, and I’m just bursting with pride... You dear old thing! What have you done with yourself to look so nice? You are fifty times prettier than you were!”
“Oh, Dreda! Am I—am I, really? I’m so glad!” cried Rowena, smiling. But Dreda noticed with amazement that she didn’t seem a bit conceited; if such a curious thing could be believed true, there was a hitherto unknown modesty and self-forgetfulness about her manner. “You look a darling yourself,” Rowena added affectionately. “Are you going to get a lot of prizes to make us proud of you too?”