“Dear Mellicent, I am sowwy, but I cannot take more than one fwiend,” she murmured caressingly. “Evewybody is asking for invitations, and it would not do to encroach too far on Lady B’s hospitality. Another time, when Peggy is not going, I should be delighted to take you with me—”
“But, Rosalind, I can’t go on Friday. I am dreadfully disappointed, for it is just the sort of thing I should love, and if I had only an ordinary engagement I would put it off, but it is not. An old school-friend of mother’s is coming up from the country especially to see us, and we could not possibly put her off, as we have already had no end of difficulty to fix a day. Letters and telegrams have been flying to and fro, and if we altered the date there is no saying when we should meet. I am very, very sorry, but it is impossible to go with you.”
“But surely you could be spared for the afternoon! You would see your fwiend in the morning, and at dinner—”
“She won’t arrive until lunch-time, and must leave again at six o’clock. She will travel four hours in the train just to spend the afternoon with us, so I could not possibly go out; but there is no reason why Mellicent should stay in too. She could go instead of me.”
Peggy would not have ventured to make such a suggestion had not Rosalind’s own protestations opened the way, but as it was she felt no diffidence in making it, and the change from despair to rapture on her friend’s expressive face went far to console her for her own disappointment. But if Mellicent’s expression was significant, Rosalind’s was even more so. Her lips tightened, the colour deepened in her cheeks, and her eyes sent forth an unmistakable gleam of vexation. She hated being forced into an unpleasant position, but there was one thing which she would hate even more—to be obliged to take a dowdily dressed, countrified-looking visitor to one of the social events of the season, and at all risks this must be avoided. Mellicent would probably be offended, Peggy furious, Arthur pained and disappointed—she knew it beforehand, and lamented the knowledge; but, as Arthur had said, the bent of a lifetime is too strong to be overcome in a moment. Rosalind would have been ready to protest that she cared a hundred times more for her friends’ feelings than for her own dignity, but when it came to the test she sacrificed them without hesitation in the interest of selfish pride.
“I am sowwy, but if you cannot go, Peggy, I think we had better leave it alone for the pwesent. Some day we may all be able to arrange to go together, but Lady B’s will be a gweat cwush, and I shall meet many fwiends, and be so much engrossed. Mellicent would not enjoy herself without you. She would know nobody.”
There was a dead silence. Hector stared at his shoes; Peggy gave a short, staccato cough; and Arthur looked swiftly across the room, to see how Mellicent bore herself beneath this unmerited snub. She was seated on the sofa beside Eunice Rollo, slightly in advance of himself, so that only a crimson cheek was visible, and a neck reddened to the roots of the hair, but Arthur saw something else, which touched him even more than his old friend’s distress—a little grey-gloved hand which shot out from its owner’s side and gripped the broad waist; a little hand that stroked, and patted, and pressed close in sympathetic embrace. Arthur’s lips twitched beneath his moustache, but he said no word; and presently Rosalind rose and took her departure, feeling the atmosphere too charged with electricity to be agreeable.
Contrary to his usual custom, Arthur did not accompany her downstairs, so that he returned from the door in time to hear the explosion of indignation which followed her departure. Mellicent stamped up and down the floor, breathless and tearful; Eunice stared at the floor; and Peggy sat erect as a poker, with a bright spots of colour on either cheek, and lips screwed into a tight little button of scorn.
“Don’t speak to me!” she was saying. “Don’t ask my opinion. I am bereft of speech. Never, in all my existence, have I ever beheld such an exhibition of snobbish disloyalty—”
“Mellicent, my mother has a ticket,” put in Eunice. “You can go with her and take my place. I have seen the Princess scores of times. Oh, please don’t cry, it isn’t worth it, indeed it isn’t!”