Ella scarcely attended to the latter part of this speech, so almost boiling over with indignation did she feel.
“Oh indeed,” she said icily. “Then of course you will explain it all to my godmother. I should like to have thanked her for thinking of me, but for the future I hope she will not go through the mockery of inviting me.”
Madelene stared at her.
“What do you mean, Ella? What has Aunt Anna got to do with it? And, by the by,” as the first hazy perception of some element of cross-purposes began to penetrate to her brain, “how did you know about Ermine’s going at all? She couldn’t have told you about it when she hadn’t told me?” and there was an accent of pain in the last words.
Ella stared in turn.
“You told me yourself—this morning at breakfast when Lady Cheynes’ invitation came,” said she.
Madelene stood still and began to laugh.
“My dear child,” she exclaimed, “I am so sorry. I had forgotten all about to-morrow. Yes, certainly you are to go—you and I. Papa is quite, pleased, and of course if he is, I am. What I was talking about was quite another matter,” and she went on to tell Ella all about the invitation Ermine had received and her pleasure that it was to be accepted. Never had Madelene been so confiding and companionable to her before; she seemed a different creature.
“She is very unselfish,” thought Ella, and she felt ashamed of her own suspicions, as she heartily joined in Madelene’s pleasure.
“You see,” Miss St Quentin went on, “we have lived rather a shut-up life—for even travelling is often shut-up, though it sounds absurd to say so, and Ermine is still young—I don’t want her to begin fancying she is not. I should like her to go about more.”