Susan sat back on her heels, lifting scared, pitiful eyes.
“Susan,” said Dreda regally, “I don’t hate you. You needn’t be frightened. I don’t hate you a bit—I’m sorry for you. This should have been your triumph, and I have spoiled it. It’s very hard on you too, Susan!”
“Oh, Dreda!” gasped Susan breathlessly. “Dreda, you’re magnificent!” She was wan and white no longer; her eyes blazed. No one seeing Susan at that moment could possibly have called her plain; the lovely soul of her shone through the flesh, working its transformation, even as the leaping flames were now turning the dull hearth into a thing of beauty and life.
Still on her knees, Susan crawled across the few intervening yards of floor, and rested her head against Dreda’s knee.
“I’d have given it up a hundred times - a thousand over, Dreda, rather than let you have this experience!” she said brokenly. And Dreda knew that she spoke the truth.
It was in this attitude that Nancy discovered the two girls when she entered the room a few minutes later, bearing in her hands a temptingly spread tea-tray. One glance of the red-brown eyes testified to her satisfaction at such eloquent signs of peace, but manner and speech disdained sentiment.
“Corn in Egypt!” she cried cheerfully. “The Duck fairly showered dainties upon me—scones, sandwiches, cakes, and a fresh pot of tea. Let’s fall to at once. I am fainting with hunger.”
She placed three chairs round the table, seated herself in front of the tray, and, pouring out three cups of tea, handed them round with hospitable zeal. Dreda ate and drank and felt comforted, in spite of herself. It was wonderful how the mere creature comforts of warmth and food seemed to soothe the pain at her heart. She even began to feel a faint enjoyment in the dramatic element of her position, to realise that if she had failed she had failed in a noticeable, even in a tragic, fashion. To Susan belonged the glory, yet she, the beaten one, remained unquestionably the heroine of the day!
By the time that second cups of tea had been handed round, and an attack made upon the iced cake, Dreda was ready and eager to discuss her trouble.
“How could those numbers have been altered, Susan? Mine was five and yours was ten. They aren’t in the least alike!”