Eleanor inquired if it was an invariable sign of lunacy in America to take your breakfast in bed. Lucy couldn't say. All she knew was that nobody ever took it so in Greyridge, Vermont, unless they were on the point of death.
'I should never be any good, any more,' she said, with an energy that brought the red back to her cheeks,—'if they were to spoil me at home, as you spoil me here.'
Eleanor waved her hand, smiled, and went her way.
As she moved further and further away from them down the long avenue, she saw them all the time, though she never once looked back—saw the eager inquiries of the man, the modest responsiveness of the girl. She was leaving them to themselves—at the bidding of her own pride—and they had the May morning before them. According to a telegram just received, Alice Manisty was not expected till after lunch.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Manisty was talking of his sister to Lucy, With coolness, and as much frankness as he thought necessary.
'She is very odd—and very depressing. She is now very little with us. There is no company she likes as well as her own. But in early days, she and I were great friends. We were brought up in an old Yorkshire house together, and a queer pair we were. I was never sent to school, and I got the better of most of my tutors. Alice was unmanageable too, and we spent most of our time rambling and reading as we pleased. Both of us dreamed awake half our time. I had shooting and fishing to take me out of myself; but Alice, after my mother's death, lived with her own fancies and got less like other people every day. There was a sort of garden house in the park,—a lonely, overgrown kind of place. We put our books there, and used practically to live there for weeks together. That was just after I came into the place, before I went abroad. Alice was sixteen. I can see her now sitting in the doorway of the little house, hour after hour, staring into the woods like a somnambulist, one arm behind her head. One day I said to her: "Alice, what are you thinking of?" "Myself!" she said. So then I laughed at her, and teased her. And she answered quite quietly, "I know it is a pity—but I can't help it."
Lucy's eyes were wide with wonder. 'But you ought to have given her something to do—or to learn: couldn't she have gone to school, or found some friends?'
'Oh! I dare say I ought to have done a thousand things,' said Manisty impatiently. 'I was never a model brother, or a model anything! I grew up for myself and by myself, and I supposed Alice would do the same. You disapprove?'
He turned his sharp, compelling eyes upon her, so that Lucy flinched a little. 'I shouldn't dare,' she said laughing. 'I don't know enough about it. But it's plain, isn't it, that girls of sixteen shouldn't sit on doorsteps and think about themselves?'