“It was very ridiculous, I thought,” she said with a sigh, “and I told her so. I don’t suppose she meant any harm. She is very ignorant, and knows nothing about the customs of society. Thank heaven, she can’t stay very long now.”
“Why can’t she stay?” cried Herbert, alarmed. “Aunt Susan, I don’t know what has come over you. You used to be so kind to everybody, but now it is the people I particularly like you are so furious against. Why? those girls, who are as pretty and as pleasant as possible, and just the kind of companions Reine wants, and Madame Jean, who is the most charming person I ever saw in this house. Ignorant! I think she is very accomplished. How she sang last night, and what an eye she has for the picturesque! I never admired Whiteladies so much as this morning, when she took us over it. Aunt Susan, don’t be so cross. Are you disappointed in Reine, or in me, that you are so hard upon the people we like most?”
“The people you like most?” cried Miss Susan aghast.
“Yes, Aunt Susan, I like them too,” said Reine, bravely putting herself by her brother’s side. I believe they both thought it was a most chivalrous and high-spirited thing they were doing, rejecting experience and taking rashly what seemed to them the weaker side. The side of the accused against the judge, the side of the young against the old. It seemed so natural to do that. The two stood together in their foolishness in the old hall, all decorated in their honor, and confronted the dethroned queen of it with a smile. She stood baffled and thunderstruck, gazing at them, and scarcely knew what to say.
“Well, children, well,” she managed to get out at last. “You are no longer under me, you must choose your own friends; but God help you, what is to become of you if these are the kind of people you like best!”
They both laughed softly; though Reine had compunctions, they were not afraid. “You must confess at least that we have good taste,” said Herbert; “two very pretty people, and one beautiful. I should have been much happier with Sophy at one hand and Madame Jean on the other, instead of those two swells, as Sophy calls them.”
“Sophy, as you call her, would give her head for their notice,” cried Miss Susan indignant, “two of the best women in the county, and the most important families.”
Herbert shrugged his shoulders. “They did not amuse me,” he said, “but perhaps I am stupid. I prefer the foolish Sophy and the undaunted Madame Jean.”
Miss Susan left them with a cold good-night to see all the lights put out, which was important in the old house. She was so angry that it almost eased her of her personal burden; but Reine, I confess, felt a thrill of panic as she went up the oak stairs. Scylla and Charybdis! She did not identify Herbert’s danger, but in her heart there worked a vague premonition of danger, and without knowing why, she was afraid.