“But still—under the circumstances—”
“Yes,” said Imogen, smiling herself, “under the circumstance of its being very doubtful if we should have got here at all without you, I think certainly you may be—”
“Master of the ceremonies,” said Florence, half interrupting her as she hesitated. Imogen looked at her. She was as tall as Beatrix, scarcely as handsome perhaps, but with an expression in her eyes which would have attracted Imogen much more than Trixie’s bold defiance, had it not been for the prejudice already skilfully sown against her elder sister by that astute young woman.
“She is discontented and rather cross-looking,” thought Imogen. “I am sure it is true, as Trixie said, that she has a disagreeable temper;” and the gentleness of Florence’s voice and manner—gentleness which, to please her cousin, she endeavoured to make specially kindly—the little stranger dubbed as “patronising,” while the real sadness underlying it she attributed to the chronic unamiability Beatrix had done more than hint at. Still, it was not in Imogen’s nature to be altogether unresponsive. She replied becomingly to Florence’s few words of welcome, and went on into the dining-room beside her. But there was a complete absence of the girlish camaraderie which lighted up her face as she threw back a laughing word or two to Trixie following with Rex behind them.
Major Winchester almost ground his teeth.
“Already!” he muttered. “So you have made friends with Miss Wentworth, I see,” he said aloud, dryly.
A sharp and defiant reply was on Trixie’s lips, but she prudently recalled Miss Forsyth’s advice. Nor did she “overdo” her part either.
“I don’t know what you call ‘making friends’,” she said quietly, and not without a certain dignity. “You know me too well to suppose that a child like that and I could have much in common; but after my father’s exceedingly severe warnings this morning, I was bound to be civil and attentive, if I did not want to drive things too far.” There was a touch, possibly sincere for the moment, of something like genuine regret and reproach, as she added, rather bitterly: “I don’t, of course, dream of asking you to believe I mean to turn over a new leaf. It would be quite against you very good people’s principles to credit one with such intentions.”
Rex started. The words came home to his sensitive conscience. Was it not true that he had almost come to have no belief in Beatrix? “Trixie!” he exclaimed impulsively, “if you—” But she had already turned away.
She did not wish him to be kind to her; she resented his interference too deeply and maliciously; she did not wish to be in the slightest degree softened to him. But he did not see the expression on her face, or the mocking, spiteful smile on her lips, so he retained a certain feeling of pity and self-reproach, as he thought to himself, with a sigh: “If only Eva had been well and strong, her influence might have done something, even with Trixie.”