“Listen to her!” said Mr. Ogilvie, “her son! I like that.”
“And whose son may he be? But you’ll not make me quarrel whatever you do—and on this night of all others. Effie, here is your health, my dear, and I wish you every good. We will have to write to Eric, and perhaps he might get home in time. What was that Eric said, Robert, about getting short leave? It is a very wasteful thing coming all the way from India, and only six weeks or so to spend at home. Still, if there was a good reason for it——”
“Is Eric coming home? have you got a letter? But you could not have got a letter since the morning,” cried Effie.
“No; but other things may have happened since the morning,” said Mrs. Ogilvie with a nod and a smile. Effie could not understand the allusions which rained upon her. She retreated more and more into herself, merely listening to the talk that went on across her. She sat at her usual side of the table, eating little, taking no notice. It did not occur to her that what had happened in the wood concerned any one but herself. After all, what was it? Nothing to disturb anybody, not a thing to be talked about. To try to please her—that was all he had asked, and who could have refused him a boon so simple? It was silly of her even, she said to herself, to be so confused by it, so absorbed thinking about it, growing white and red, as if something had happened; when nothing had happened except that he was to try to please her—as if she were so hard to please!
But Effie was more and more disturbed when her stepmother turned upon her as soon as the dining-room door was closed, and took her by the shoulders again.
“You little bit thing, you little quiet thing!” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “To think you should have got the prize that never took any thought of it, whereas many another nice girl!—I am just as proud as if it was myself: and he is good as well as rich, and by no means ill-looking, and a very pleasant young man. I have always felt like a mother to you, Effie, and always done my duty, I hope. Just you trust in me as if I were your real mother. Where did ye meet him? And were you very much surprised? and what did he say?”
Effie grew red from the soles of her feet, she thought, to the crown of her head, shame or rather shamefacedness, its innocent counterpart, enveloping her like a mantle. Her eyes fell before her stepmother’s, but she shook herself free of Mrs. Ogilvie’s hold.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“Oh fie, Effie, fie! You may not intend to show me any confidence, which will be very ill done on your part: but you cannot pretend not to know what I mean. It was me that had pity upon the lad, and showed him the way you were coming. I have always been your well-wisher, doing whatever I could. And to tell me that you don’t know what I mean!”
Effie had her little obstinacies as well as another. She was not so perfect as Fred Dirom thought. She went and got her knitting,—a little stocking for Rory,—work which she was by no means devoted to on ordinary occasions. But she got it out now, and sat down in a corner at a distance from the table and the light, and began to knit as if her life depended upon it.