“I must wait till we are back in London again,” she said to herself. “Of course she must be civil and pleasant to them all, and they certainly have been very kind and nice. But she is more impressionable than I thought her. Seeing things here as she has done, I am afraid she will never sympathise thoroughly in the monotony and dullness of this narrow home-life. Still, after all, it can’t be helped. I must do without sympathy, I suppose. But—I do wish it had never come into mother’s head to invite Hertha down here.”
She was standing by herself in front of one of the windows of a long corridor, on to which opened several of the principal rooms on the first floor, when these reflections crossed her mind. This window overlooked the entrance to the walk so carefully eschewed by Celia—though not so much of it could be seen as from Miss Norreys’s room, situated in an angle of the house.
The association of the White Weeper’s reputed preference for this walk was always an irritation to Winifred, as was, in fact, everything real or imaginary which had to do with the old story.
She gave herself a little shake when she took in whither her gaze was absently directed.
“Ridiculous nonsense!” she half murmured, as she turned to go, and why she should have started violently, as at that moment a hand was laid upon her shoulder, she could not have told. It was not the sign of a guilty conscience, for, in all good faith, Winifred as yet had barely taken in that she had been at all to blame. “Misunderstood,” “narrowly judged,” she had told herself she had been, and she allowed that to others her conduct might have seemed disingenuous. But she was essentially honest, and it is sometimes as difficult for naturally candid persons to take in that they have put themselves into a crooked position, as for a crafty and calculating character to believe in straightforwardness in itself or others.
Still she started. And she was assuredly not nervous.
It was Hertha’s face she looked up into as she turned: Hertha’s eyes, searching—and what more? Was it reproach or anxiety, or a mingling of both, that Winifred read in their clear depths? And in spite of herself the girl looked away, while her colour deepened a little.
“Did I startle you?” said Miss Norreys. “I am sorry, but—I wanted to speak to you quietly. I have been looking for you.”
“I am only too ready and delighted to have a chance of you,” said Winifred, trying to carry the war into the enemy’s country. “But you know I scarcely see you; mamma and the others monopolise you so.”
There was a touch of truth in the reproach, but Hertha did not feel guilty. She had avoided tête-à-tête conversation with Winifred out of consideration for the girl herself as much as for others.