"My dear Miss Susy! What are you doing? Give me that cup!"
"No—please! I like doing it!" And she passed on, smiling, towards Lady
Tonbridge, whose sharp eyes had seen the trivial contact between
Winnington and the girl. How the mere sound of his voice had changed
the aspect of the young face! Poor child—poor child!
"How well you look Susy! Such a pretty dress!" said Madeleine tenderly in the girl's ear.
Susy flushed.
"You really think so? Mother gave it me for a birthday present." She looked up with her soft, brown eyes, which always seemed to have in them, even when they smiled, a look of pleading—as of someone at a disadvantage. At the same moment Winnington passed her.
"Could you go and talk to Miss Andrews?" he said, over his shoulder, so that only she heard.
Susy went obediently across the room to where a silent, dark-haired girl sat by herself, quite apart from the rest of the circle. Marion Andrews was plain, with large features and thick wiry hair. Maumsey society in general declared her "impossible." She rarely talked; she seemed to have no tastes; and the world believed her both stupid and disagreeable. And by contrast with the effusive amiabilities of her mother, she could appear nothing else. Mrs. Andrews indeed had a way of using her daughter as a foil to her own qualities, which must have paralysed the most self-confident, and Marion had never possessed any belief in herself at all.
As Susy Amberley timidly approached her, and began to make conversation, she looked up coldly, and hardly answered. Meanwhile Mrs. Andrews was pouring out a flood of talk under which the uncomfortable Winnington—for it always fell to him as host to entertain her—sat practising endurance. She was a selfish, egotistical woman, with a vast command of sloppy phrases, which did duty for all that real feeling or sympathy of which she possessed uncommonly little. On this occasion she was elaborately dressed,—overdressed—in a black satin gown, which seemed to Winnington, an ugly miracle of trimming and tortured "bits." Her large hat was thick with nodding plumes, and beside her spotless white gloves and showy lace scarf, her daughter's slovenly coat and skirt, of the cheapest ready-made kind, her soiled gloves, and clumsy shoes, struck even a man uncomfortably. That poor girl seemed to grow plainer and more silent every year.
He was just shaking himself free from the mother, when Dr. and Mrs. France were announced. The doctor came in with a furrowed brow, and a preoccupied look. After greeting Mrs. Matheson, and the other guests, he caught a glance of enquiry from Winnington and went up to him.
"The evening paper is full of the most shocking news!" he said, with evident agitation. "There has been an attempt on Hampton Court—and two girls who were caught breaking windows in Piccadilly have been badly hurt by the crowd. A bomb too has been found in the entrance of one of the tube stations. It was discovered in time, or the results might have been frightful."