“Mamma?” said Imogen.
“Yes, darling. I have been watching for you to awake. Is your head better, sweetest?”
“I think so,” the girl, now fully on the alert, replied. “What time is it? The middle of the night?”
“Oh no, dear, the dressing-gong has not sounded yet.”
“Has it not?” in a tone of disappointment.
“I won’t come down to dinner; you will tell them about my headache. But you must go down, mamsey,” with unconscious selfishness, “and—it would not do to seem to make a fuss.”
“No dear,” very submissively. “But first, Imogen, I have to tell you what I have done. I don’t know what you’ll say. I have had a telegram from Mrs Hume, begging us so to go to her at once. I fancy she has some party she wants you for; and so, as it was so near our time for leaving, and you not seeming very well, and—”
“You have said we would go? Oh, I do hope you did,” said Imogen, with feverish eagerness.
“Oh, why didn’t you wake me?—if only we could go to-night.”
“Not to-night, dearest; that couldn’t be; but to-morrow. I have telegraphed that we will be with her to-morrow.”