And Frederick St. John, bound by a promise to Lady Anne, did not speak out openly, as he might have done, but evaded the question.
On the following Thursday, in the long, low room at the Rectory, its windows opening to the lawn, sat Sarah Beauclerc, practising a piece of difficult music. She and her cousin were contrasts. The one, cold, calm, calculating, did things by rule; the other did all by impulse, and could not be cold if she tried. Sarah was the least in the world artificial; Georgina was too natural.
Mrs. Beauclerc, thin and discontented-looking as of yore, the red tip of her nose growing redder year by year, sat at the French window of the room, talking to Georgina. Georgina, in a clear pink muslin dress, with open lace sleeves on her pretty wrists, stood just outside the window. She was partly listening to her mother,--as much as she ever did listen to Mrs. Beauclerc's grumblings,--partly humming to herself the piece that Sarah was playing, as her eyes wandered wistfully, far far out in the distance, seeking one who did not come.
"What are you looking at?" Mrs. Beauclerc suddenly asked in sharp tones. "You never pay attention to me, Georgina."
"I thought--I thought--" and though the answer was given with hesitation, she spoke the straightforward truth--"I thought I saw Frederick St. John. Some one was there, but he has turned away again, whoever it was. What do you want to say, mamma?"
"Mrs. St. John and Anne partly promised to come in and dine with us, sans cérémonie, this evening. I want you to go and ask them whether they are really coming."
She stepped gaily over the threshold into the room, all her inertness gone. The short secluded walk through the private grounds would be charming enough on that warm autumn day; but had it been one of stones and brambles, Georgina had deemed it Eden, with the prospect of his presence at the end of it. She halted for a moment to ask a question; to ask it indifferently, as if it were of no moment to her, and she tossed her handkerchief carelessly about as she spoke it.
"Is Frederick to come with them?"
"Dear me, Georgina! Is he to come! He can come if he likes."
Absorbed in her music, Sarah Beauclerc had heard nothing of this. Georgina came in again with her bonnet on. "Sarah, I am going up to Castle Wafer. Will you come?"