"Don't, Wave—please don't remind me of my silliness. Oh dear, how unhappy I used to be! And now"—and here Mollie gazed with delighted eyes down the splendid gallery—"to think that I shall ever be mistress of this! It is just like a wonderful fairy story; for none of our castles in the air—not even Kitlands—came up to this."
"Of course not," returned Waveney, energetically; "only Cinderella could compare with it." And then, in a teasing voice, "Your ladyship will not need to glue your face against shop-windows any more. You will have diamonds and pearls of your own."
"Yes, and a pony-carriage, with cream-coloured ponies!" exclaimed Mollie, joyously. "And Wave, just think! Moritz is going to give me riding-lessons! Oh, his kindness and generosity are beyond words. Darling, you must love him for his goodness to your poor little Mollie; and Wave, remember, all this will make no difference. I think I care for it so much because I shall be able to help you and father."
They were interrupted at this moment. Moritz carried off Mollie, and Gwen proposed that they should follow. "For, while Moritz has been dramatising," she observed, "you two poor things have been starving." And Waveney could not deny that she was excessively hungry.
The old, grey-haired butler was in his place when they entered the dining-room. Moritz stopped to speak to him.
"Tell Mrs. Wharton that I shall bring Miss Ward to see her this afternoon," he said; and then they took their places.
Both the girls were a little subdued by the unwonted magnificence of their environment, but they struggled gallantly against the feeling.
As Mollie ate her chicken, and sipped her champagne, she wondered how soon she would get used to be waited upon by two tall footmen, and how she would feel when she was first addressed as "My lady." "I hope I shall not laugh," she observed to Waveney afterwards.
Waveney was wondering why she had never noticed that Moritz had rather an aristocratic look. Their old friend, Monsieur Blackie, had always had good manners; but now that he was in his own house, and at his own table, she was struck by his well-bred air and perfect ease.
"He looks like a viscount," she said to herself, "and yet he is perfectly his old self. Mollie was wiser than all of us, for she found out that he was worthy of her love." And then Waveney fell into a reverie over her strawberries. Her thoughts had strayed to a certain dull, narrow house in Dereham. Thorold Chaytor's grave face and intellectual brow seemed to rise before her. If she had his love, she would not envy Mollie her rank and riches; she would envy no one. Even now she had her secret happiness, for the words she had heard that sorrowful night were for ever stamped on her memory. "Trouble? when there is nothing on earth that I would not do for you, my darling!" How, then, could she doubt that she was beloved?