“Lady Frederica here!” she exclaimed. “You must tell Cicely, dear. I shall be down in a moment, but Cicely has just gone out to get some fresh roses for your uncle’s room. I wonder what can have brought Frederica here so early.”
“It was to ask me something, dear aunt,” began Geneviève. Then going on to explain, she made no secret of her gratification, and her hope that Mrs. Methvyn would like the idea of her visit to the Fawcetts.
It would have been hard to refuse consent to a request made so sweetly. Mrs. Methvyn seemed nearly as pleased as Geneviève herself.
“I shall be delighted for you to go, and I think it will do you a great deal of good,” she said cordially. “Run out and find Cicely, and I will go to Lady Frederica.”
Geneviève found Cicely standing on the terrace near the library window, and talking to Lady Frederica through the open glass door. Cicely’s hands were full of roses, and the face with which she turned to her cousin looked as bright and sweet as the flowers.
“I am so pleased, so very pleased, to hear of Lady Frederica’s plan for you, Geneviève,” she exclaimed. “Nothing could have happened more opportunely, for you have not looked quite well lately. Of course mother says you must go, doesn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Geneviève, “aunt is very kind and so are you, Cicely.”
But her tone was hardly as hearty as her cousin had expected. A wild sort of yearning that Cicely could know all that was in her heart, a foolish wish that she could refuse to go, a painful consciousness of not deserving this kindness rushed over her all together, and for an instant she felt as if she should burst into tears. The voice she had so determinedly stifled made itself heard again once more; her cousin’s unselfish sympathy in her pleasure woke once again the stings of self-reproach—a shadow seemed suddenly to have fallen over her bright anticipations.
“Are you not pleased to go, Geneviève?” asked Cicely with a little disappointment in her tone.
“Oh! yes, very pleased,” said Geneviève. “But I am sorry to go away too.”