"Tell me, my darling," said Mrs. Hollingford, with her arm round my neck, "is there anything amiss between you and John?"
"What could there be amiss?" I said, kissing her hand, and avoiding her eyes. "I have not seen him since the day I came here. He has called to inquire for me constantly."
"I thought of it before you left us," she said sadly, "and I fear it more every day. He is—you are both strangely altered. Margery, don't jilt my son. He is not as fine a gentleman as others you may see, but you will never meet his like."
I turned my head away, and said nothing. What was there that I could say? My heart was big with much that I could not tell, and I was silent. And so the occasion passed away. Mrs. Hollingford went home with a bitter doubt in her heart; and the doubt was all of me.
After she had gone, Mrs. Hill came and sat with me, and tried to amuse me. She was a good little woman, but her gossip was tiresome, and her anecdotes worldly. I was glad when her duty to her other guests carried her away. You will find it hard, my dears, to understand from my account of this time that I was staying at a pleasant country-house full of merry-making people. But the people were only shadows to me, and the time a puzzle. What was not real to me then, I cannot make real to you now.
The afternoon was wet and windy, and the riding-party returned early, all but Rachel and another lady and gentleman. These came home later. I was sitting in my room, in the firelight, alone, when Rachel came to me, laughing, in her wet riding-habit, saying she had had enough of the weather.
I said, "Yes, it is a pity you went."
"No, not a pity," she said. Then, "Has not Mrs. Hollingford been here?"
"Yes," I said.
"Here, in this room, with you?"