“I enjoyed it very much,” said Lady Westland, “I assure you; I only came to do a duty and countenance you, my dear Dolly; but I quite enjoyed it.”
“We came to scoff, and we remained to play,” said Ada; while Lord Westland squared his shoulders, and threw out his chest, and repeated his wife’s observation about the pretty scene.
“And I hope you will always calculate on me to give my countenance whenever it is wanted,” he said.
Dolly, though so tired, had to stand and smile, and look gratified by all their compliments. And what was worse, when they had all at last been got away, there rose up from behind the chairs on which Mrs. Booth and Mrs. Rossiter, waiting with the ease of habitués till all was over, had seated themselves again after their leave-takings, a tall and gawky figure, dark in the fading light.
“Mr. Westland is going to stay, Dolly, to share our evening meal, though I have told him it will be a homely one,” the rector said, not without a tone of apology in his voice. Another voice, high up in the air, muttered something about the greatest pleasure. But Dolly took no notice. This was the worst infliction of all. She let herself drop into the wicker-work chair with the cushions, which Lady Westland had declared to be so comfortable.
“I thought they were never going away,” she said with angry candour. “I am so tired. I so wanted a little peace.”
The rector and young Westland both knew the meaning of this speech, but neither ventured to reply.
Mrs. Booth, however, stretched out her hand and gave the girl a friendly pinch. “They are the most important people in the county, Dolly.”
“No, indeed, that they are not” the girl cried loud out. She was not one to desert her friends, even though they might not be so good to her as she had hoped. But as Mrs. Booth’s remark had been made in a whisper, no one knew exactly to what this prompt contradiction referred.
At supper Mr. Westland was of course placed at Dolly’s right hand. If he was not the most important young man in the neighbourhood, he was nominally of the highest rank, and would no doubt have taken precedence anywhere of Paul Markham. He was very tall, and very lean, an overgrown, lanky boy, with big projecting eyes, which were full of meaning when he looked at Dolly—or at least of something which he intended for meaning. He did not talk very much, but he gazed at her constantly, which was very irritating to Dolly. Mr. Rossiter was a much more lively person. He came in in a state of high good-humour, which none of the party already assembled shared. Both the ladies who were Dolly’s guests had grievances. They had sat on uncomfortable chairs all the afternoon by way of showing their identity with the best families, but the Westlands and the Trevors had taken very little notice of them. The doctor’s wife for one felt that she had not been of that service to Dolly which Dolly had a right to expect, and yet that she had not asserted her husband’s position in anything like a satisfactory way by this failure in friendship. The supper-table was not as lively as a supper-table ought to be after a bright afternoon out of doors.