“I must say it right out, or she will forget to introduce me,” thought Winifred, with her customary determination.
But Lady Campion was not quite so flighty and unreliable as she got the credit of being. And she was really good-natured; she rather liked Winifred’s downrightness. With a hand on her arm, she gently drew the girl forward towards the couch where sat Miss Norreys, a not uninterested spectator of the little drama.
“Lady Campion is a kind woman,” she said to herself. For there had been times when she was inclined to judge the lady in question too severely. With all her gifts, Hertha did not possess the capricious power so often found where one could least expect it, so even more frequently absent where one would have made sure of it—of correct, almost unfailing discernment of character. She was often mistaken, and being by nature much more enthusiastic than she allowed to appear, she had often been disappointed. And this had resulted in a certain hardening of her sympathies, which one felt to be perplexing. Sometimes, too, she had found herself obliged to reverse an unfavourable impression—a demand of honesty which brings with it some sting of mortification, interfering with the softening effect of what should be a gratifying discovery.
But hers was a character to mellow as she grew older. And with her a spark of pity was at all times, enough to ensure a glow of kindly interest.
This was what happened just now. She rose from her seat as Lady Campion and Winifred approached, and held out her hand with ready graciousness to the—as she imagined—somewhat shrinking girl, who was feeling herself, no doubt, strange and out of her element.
“It would have been kinder to have asked her by herself—or at least not among quite such a crowd,” she thought.
And to any one knowing Winifred, there would have been something almost amusing in the half-protecting tone with which Miss Norreys at once addressed her. But if love is blind, so is youthful enthusiasm, and Winifred was truly enthusiastic about the young singer. More than this, that any one could by any possibility look upon her as an object of protection or pity had never dawned upon the girl, whose self-confidence and matter-of-fact preoccupation with her own ideas often dulled her perceptions. If she noticed any special warmth in Miss Norreys’ greeting, she put it down, though perhaps scarcely in so many words, to the favourable impression she herself made on her new acquaintance.
“We took to each other from the first moment,” she said to Celia afterwards in describing the meeting.
“Will you come and sit down by me for a little—there is plenty of room on the sofa?” said Hertha, and Winifred delightedly obeyed. “Lady Campion tells me,” she went on, “that this is, practically, almost your first visit to London. I think I envy you.”
“Do you?” said Winifred, not quite sure of her meaning. “I—I really don’t know. We live quite, quite in the country, you see. It is, of course, very interesting to see London for the first time when one is old enough to take it in better, but—”