She looked almost brilliantly pretty, but a trifle resentful when the others came up. Florence, not unnaturally, felt slightly indignant, and even Mrs Wyngate decided that the girl must be silly as well as spoilt. For Imogen took no trouble to conceal her annoyance.
“Can she really be so foolish as to imagine Major Winchester finds her society interesting?” thought the matron of the party, while Florence mentally decided that Imogen’s innocence and timidity were not of a kind to “last.”
“She will soon develop into a self-conceited little flirt,” reflected the elder girl; “all the more danger if she falls into bad hands. I foresee no sinecure if I am to look after her.” But she exerted herself to be amusing and agreeable, and to keep the party together. “Poor Rex!” she thought, “I daresay it’s almost as hard upon him to look cheerful as it is upon me. I mustn’t be selfish, either.”
The caves were not bad caves in their way, and child as she really was, Imogen soon forgot her vexation in the fun of exploring their dark recesses. She ran on laughingly, declaring that she must go to “the very end,” and Rex, who knew every nook and cranny, contented himself with a “Don’t let her do anything foolish,” to Oliver, who was doing the honours to Mrs Wyngate, and then returned to the entrance, where it was rather a refreshment to him to find Florence, and to walk up and down with her, with the liberty of talking or not as they felt inclined.
Chapter Six.
The Plot Thickens.
“You’re not cold, I hope, Florence,” he said suddenly, waking up out of a brown study.
“Oh no, it is never very cold just here; the rocks shelter us,” she said. “Besides, I am well used to it, and well wrapped up. I only hope your protégée won’t catch cold,” she added, somewhat uneasily. “I should get into a scrape both with her mother and my own.”