“You are just the same!” she cried. “You’ve scarcely changed at all.” And then came the inevitable pause. Rose listened to a thrush singing, and to the distant sound of a mowing-machine. She seemed to have been listening quite a long time before Cecily broke in so sharply that her voice was almost like a cry.
“Ah no! don’t look at me! I’m old and ugly. I’ve changed, haven’t I, Rose?” The question ended in a nervous laugh.
CHAPTER II
“I ’M dying to go into the garden,” said Mrs. Summers. She slipped her arm within Cecily’s, and while she talked volubly, felt its trembling gradually lessen. “Tongue cannot tell what I’ve endured since I landed on Tuesday,” she exclaimed. “The children’s ayah has been ill, relations have incessantly banged at the front door, Mother has had one of her attacks—excitement, you know,—and I’ve been tearing my hair. I daren’t write to tell you when to expect me because I didn’t know from hour to hour when I could get away. At last to-day there was a lull; so, forbidding anything to happen in my absence, I just rushed off to you.”
“And the babies?” asked Cecily.
“Splendid. They got horribly spoilt on board, and now Mother’s putting the finishing touches.”
“And Jack?”
“Very fit when I left him, a month ago. But I’m not going to talk babies, nor even husbands. I want to know about you.”
Cecily shrugged her shoulders. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said. “You saw me a month before I came into this house; I’ve been here ever since. This is rather a nice seat.”
They sat down on a bench under a beech tree, and for all her volubility Rose felt herself nonplussed. She glanced at Cecily, her momentary hesitation as to what to say next indicated by a little furrow between the eyes.