“Oh, me darling,” she cried rapturously, “I am delighted for you! Isn’t that the very best news that could happen? So soon, too, and a lovely jaunt together in the beautiful summer weather. ’Twill make you strong again in no time, and you will write me long letters telling me all your adventures, and ’twill be almost as good as having them myself. I couldn’t tell you when I’ve been so pleased!”
“Humph!” said Sylvia disconsolately. Would Jack be delighted also, and hail her departure with rapturous congratulations? “Won’t you miss me? Won’t you feel lonely when I’m not here?” she questioned earnestly, and Bridgie smiled a cheery reassurement.
“I’ll have Esmeralda, you see! She will be here until the end of the season, and then we are going up to Scotland with her. We shall be so busy and taken up with one thing and another that I shan’t have time to miss you, darling.”
“Humph!” said Sylvia once more. This was intended for comfort, she was aware, but it was not the kind of comfort that was required. Bridgie O’Shaughnessy might be so unselfish as to rejoice because a friend did not suffer by her absence, but Sylvia longed to hear that she was indispensable, and that nothing and no one could fill her place. It was another bitter drop in her cup to realise that the O’Shaughnessy girls were so closely united that any friend must needs be at a discount in comparison with a sister.
“Ye don’t seem as excited as I should have expected. Is anything worrying you, dear?” Bridgie inquired, and Sylvia hurriedly searched for a plausible excuse and found it in her father’s health.
In reality she was not disquieted by his reference to his own weakness, for he had been complaining for months back without apparently growing worse, and she was convinced that the coming rest would speedily restore him to health. It made an excuse, however, and Bridgie sympathised and offered a dozen kindly, unpractical suggestions as her custom was.
Then the conversation drifted to the all-important reception which was so close at hand, and to which both girls were looking forward with such expectation. Bridgie related the latest arrangements for the entertainment of some three hundred guests, while her friend listened with eager attention. Esmeralda was sparing neither money nor pains to make the evening one of the events of the season. Singers and musicians whose names were known throughout Europe were to perform at intervals in the great drawing-room; the hall and staircase were to be transformed into a bower of roses, pink La France roses here, there, and everywhere, wreathed round the banisters, massed on the window-sills and mantelpieces, hanging in great golden baskets from the ceiling. Rose-coloured shades were to soften the glare of the electric lights; the air was to be kept cool by great blocks of ice, and scented fountains rising from banks of moss and ferns; the conservatory was to be illuminated by jewelled lanterns.
It sounded like a fairy-tale to the girl in the unfashionable suburb, and she would have been less than human if she had not counted the hours which must elapse before the evening arrived. Bridgie thought it a pity that the guests could not be labelled for the edification of the unsophisticated, but Sylvia’s greatest interest was centred on figures which were too familiar to be mistaken. The whole entertainment was, in truth, but a gorgeous setting to that conversation with Jack, which might be their last tête-à-tête for so long to come.
The dressmaker who was preparing Miss Trevor’s dress for the great occasion had seldom had more difficulty in satisfying an employer, and the sum total expended on fineries would have horrified Miss Munns if she had been allowed to see the bills. Even Sylvia winced when she added up the figures, but she repeated sturdily the old phrase, “Dad won’t mind!” and felt secure that she would meet with no worse reprimand than a little good-natured banter. On the whole she had been very economical during her stay in England, and her conscience did not upbraid her concerning this one extravagance.