Winifred’s eyes gleamed. But she kept her delight to herself, merely dashing off a word of rapturous gratitude to her new friend, and eager acceptance of her invitation. She said nothing to either her sister or Mrs Balderson beyond announcing the fact that “to-morrow afternoon” she had an engagement which would prevent her going out with them.
Mrs Balderson was annoyed. She felt, with justice, that, having given herself so much trouble for her young guests, and to a great extent disorganised her usual arrangements in their behalf, she should at least have been consulted as to any independent engagements they wished to make.
“I do not understand Winifred,” she said to her son. “Her manners, at least her ways, are certainly rather like those of an advanced or ‘emancipated’ young woman of the day. Yet surely it is impossible that she can have got hold of any of those ideas in that quiet, sheltered, almost old-fashioned country life of theirs. And her mother is such a perfect model of good breeding.”
Eric shrugged his shoulders.
“Quien sabe,” he said. “Ideas are in the air, I suppose. You never can tell where they will crop up. Why, even Celia has her theories—only she is very different from her sister, both in character and temperament. But I wouldn’t worry about Winifred, my dear mother. You have been more than good to them both, and they know it—at any rate, Celia does—and they will be leaving very soon.”
“Yes, I shall be sorry for Celia to go. She is very sweet. But I could not take the responsibility of Winifred for long. As I said, I do not understand her. Don’t be afraid, however, of my making any fuss. I would not on any account spoil the last few days of their visit by beginning to find fault.”
So Winifred set off, uninterfered with, to call on Miss Norreys, while Celia accompanied Mrs Balderson to the large annual meeting of a charitable society, in which the kind-hearted and liberal woman was much interested.
Celia was interested too. She had the happy power of throwing herself very thoroughly into the surroundings of the moment, and her mind in the last two or three weeks had begun to open in several new directions.
But all through the speeches and reports which followed each other in rapid succession, and which she would have liked to listen to with an un-preoccupied mind, there kept rising the half-uneasy thought: “I wonder where Winifred has gone, and why she did not tell me all about it. Can it be on account of what I said the other day? I hope she won’t do anything rash.”
For some things, Celia felt she would not be sorry to be home again—“with mother and Louise”—yet the sense of disappointment that she had made no way towards the realisation of her own ardent wish was keen to her. And Winifred did not seem to sympathise in this as she used to do.