She held out her hand with the same quiet friendliness as appeared in her words; not perhaps quite without a touch of dignity almost approaching to hauteur in the pose of her pretty head as she gave the unasked assurance. Jacinth thanked her—what else could she do?—feeling curiously small. There was something refreshing in the parting hug which Bessie bestowed upon her, ere they separated to follow their respective roads, but Jacinth was very silent all the way home.
'Nice young ladies,' remarked Clayton. 'They are old friends of yours, Miss Jacinth, no doubt?'
'The younger one was at school with my sister and me,' the girl replied, for Clayton's position as a very old and valued servant removed all flavour of freedom or presumingness from her observations. 'But I scarcely know the older one.'
And for the rest of the way home she was unusually silent. Her mind was hard at work. Jacinth was passing through a crisis. Should she tell Lady Myrtle of the Harpers being in the near neighbourhood, or should she not? There was no obligation upon her to do so; their name had not been alluded to, even if Clayton should mention to her mistress the meeting with the young ladies, nothing would be easier than for Jacinth to pass it off with some light remark. And with the temptation to act this negatively unfriendly part awoke again the sort of jealous irritation at the whole position, which she believed herself to have quite overcome.
'They perfectly haunt us,' she said to herself: 'why in the world should they have chosen Basse out of all the quantity of places there are? And to think'—this was a very ugly thought—'that but for mamma they wouldn't have been able to come abroad at all! Why should they spoil my little happy time with Lady Myrtle? And very likely no good would come to them of my telling her that they are here. She would be sure to refuse to see them.'
But what if it were so? Did that affect her own present duty?
'It might annoy Lady Myrtle,' whispered an insidious voice; but had not Mrs Mildmay risked far more in her outspoken appeal, when still almost a stranger to her mother's friend? Would not the concealment of so simple a circumstance as her meeting the Harper girls be more than negative unfriendliness? would it not savour of want of candour and selfish calculation, such as in after years Jacinth would blush to remember? And again there sounded in her ears the old north-country woman's quaint words: 'It do seem to me, ma'am, as there's two kinds of honesty.'
And Jacinth lifted her head and took her resolution.
That afternoon there was to be no drive, as the old lady had caught a slight cold. And after luncheon Jacinth came and sat beside her in her favourite position, a low stool beside Lady Myrtle's chair, whence she could rest one elbow on her friend's knee and look up into her kind old face with the strangely familiar dark eyes, which were dearer to Robin Redbreast's owner than even the girl herself suspected.
'I want to talk to you, dear Lady Myrtle,' she began. 'I want to tell you whom I met this morning,' and she related simply what had occurred.