“Well, I’ll go upstairs. Oh, don’t let me take you away from your visitors. Stella, you can come with me and show them; not that I suppose you know anything about them.”
“Not the least in the world,” said Stella very clearly. Her face, so delicately tinted usually, and at present paler than ordinary, was crimson, and her attitude one of battle. She could propitiate and play with the old cats, but she dare not either cajole or defy Lady Jane.
“Then Katherine can come, and I can enjoy the pleasure of conversation with you after. Shall I find you still here,” said Lady Jane, holding out her hand graciously to the other ladies, “when I come downstairs again?”
“Oh, we must be going——”
Mrs. Shanks was interrupted by Miss Mildmay’s precise tones. “Probably you will find me here, Lady Jane; and I am sure it will be a mutual pleasure to continue the conversation which——”
“Then I needn’t say good-bye,” said the great lady calmly, taking Katherine by the arm and pushing the girl before her. Stella stood with her shoulders against the mantel-piece, very red, watching them as they disappeared. She gave the others an angry look of appeal as the door closed upon the more important visitor.
“Oh, I wish you’d take me away with you in the midge!” she cried.
“Ah, Stella,” cried Mrs. Shanks, shaking her head, “the times I have heard you making your fun of the midge! But in a time of trouble one finds out who are one’s real friends.”
Miss Mildmay was softened too, but she was not yet disposed to give in. She had not been able to eat that special muffin which Stella had re-toasted for her. Lady Jane, in declining tea curtly with a wave of her hands, had made the tea-drinkers uncomfortable, and especially had arrested the eating of muffins, which it is difficult to consume with dignity unless you have the sympathy of your audience. It was cold now, quite cold and unappetizing. It lay in its little plate with the air of a thing rejected. And Miss Mildmay felt it was not consistent with her position to ask even for half a cup of hot tea.
“It has to be seen,” she said stiffly, “what friends will respond to the appeal; everybody is not at the disposal of the erring person when and how she pleases. I must draw a line——”