“Never mind, Norah; we’ve all got our burdens to bear. It’s a pretty hard world for feminine things. Shall I tell those people you cannot see them, that you’re not feeling well? You don’t seem quite up to the mark, you know.”
“Am I looking ill?”
“No—not ill—exactly. You’re like your ordinary self: and—last night—you hardly were.”
This time something in her words, her tone, her manner, did give me a hint of what it was she meant. As I began to perceive what it was she wanted me to understand I became conscious of a tightness about the region of the heart, as if it had been suddenly weighted with lead. She saw it was so, because she kissed me again.
“Shall I send them away?”
While I hesitated, because the thought which she had presented to my mind had left me for the moment speechless, mamma came into the room. The instant she spoke, it was plain that she had heard what Audrey had said:
“They won’t go,” she began. “I can’t think what people are coming to nowadays—never saw such manners in my life—if those men were crossing-sweepers they could not behave worse!—and I’m not sure that some of them are much better! One of them has the assurance to call himself the Duke of Chelmsford. Quite apart from anything else, the fact of his being so extremely good-looking proclaims him an impostor. All dukes are notoriously ugly. Norah, I insist upon your telling me what is the meaning of these proceedings.”
Audrey answered for me.
“My dear mamma, since Norah is scarcely awake I can’t see how you can expect her to explain what she herself as yet knows nothing about.”
Mamma pretended to be angry with Audrey, which was a most unusual thing, for no one was ever angry with Audrey long.