So the morning passed pleasantly enough. There was nothing in any of Rupert’s stories or sketches to recall the mystery I had come to feel so strangely connected with; I imagine that he kept off any approach to this special subject for his skill on purpose. And between us we worked up one or two slighter things, not, as the event proved, unsuccessfully. Rupert’s first triumph in the literary world was the acceptance by one of the then few serials of good standing of a story we gave our best attention to that morning. Poor boy! how grateful he was, and how delighted when he was able to write to tell me of this, some weeks later!
The day turned out beautifully fine and mild, which I was glad of. For if it had been rainy, Mrs Payne’s project for the afternoon would probably have been given up, or at least would scarcely have helped my private arrangement in the direction I was hoping for.
“We might as well sit in the stiff old drawing-room all the afternoon as in a stuffy tent at a flower show,” I thought to myself, “so far as any opportunity for saying a word that everybody wouldn’t hear is concerned.”
My hostess told me that luncheon would be half-an-hour later than usual, to suit her husband and son’s convenience.
“I am so glad,” she went on, “that it is such a lovely day, quite bright and sunny,” and as she spoke, she drew down a blind with housewifely consideration for the rich old velvet carpet in the drawing-room where I had been writing since released by Rupert. “It will show off some of your pretty things to advantage, my dear, though you must take care to have something in the way of a wrap with you too, as one never knows how the weather may change at this time of year.”
And to tell the truth, my reflections when she joined me had been on similar lines—what should I wear that would be becoming and suitable, and light enough and warm enough all in one? For my apprenticeship to society, under Lady Bretton’s judicious superintendence, had not been thrown away. Nor was I indifferent to the effect I might personally have on Clarence Payne.
“I don’t want him to think me an unfinished school-girl,” I said to myself. “And he has never really seen me in the daytime. Both times he met me at Millflowers it was dusk, and all the better, as I was muffled up like an old woman.”
The result of my cogitations proved satisfactory, as far as my hostess was concerned.
“What a pretty dress!” she exclaimed admiringly, as I came downstairs all ready attired, a few minutes before luncheon-time. “That shade of blue is charming and very uncommon too, and the hat goes so well with it I suppose you always get your things from London even for the country?” Whereupon a little clothes talk followed, in the middle of which the front door opened, and Clarence let himself in with his latch-key.
I looked at him with interest—men, as well as women, sometimes impress one very differently according to even trivial circumstances—such as time of day, different dress, or so on.