Mrs. Cheyne, who was lying on her couch, watched with admiring eyes the girl’s straightforward walk, so alert and business-like, so free from fuss and consciousness, and held out 148 her hand with a more cordial welcome than she was accustomed to show her visitors.
It was a long room; and as the summer dusk was falling, and there was only a shaded lamp beside Mrs. Cheyne, it was full of dim corners. Nevertheless, Phillis piloted herself without hesitation to the illuminated circle.
“This is good of you, Miss Challoner, to take me at my word. But where is your sister? I wanted to look at her again, for it is long since I have seen any one so pretty. Miss Mewlstone, this is the good Samaritan who bound up my foot so cleverly.”
“Ah, just so,” returned Miss Mewlstone. And a soft, plump hand touched Phillis’s, and then she went on picking up stitches and taking no further notice.
“Nan could not come,” observed Phillis. “She had to run down to Beach House to report progress to mother. We hope she is coming home to-morrow. But, as you were so kind as to write, I thought I would just call and inquire about your foot. And then it would be easier to explain things than to write about it.”
“Oh! so your mother is coming home!” returned Mrs. Cheyne, with so much interest in her voice that Miss Mewlstone left off counting to look at her. (“Just so, just so,” Phillis heard her mutter.) “You must have worked hard to get ready for her so soon. When my foot will allow me to cross a room without hobbling, I will do myself the pleasure of calling on her. But that will be neither this week nor the next, I am afraid. But I shall see a good deal of you and your sister before then,” she concluded, with the graciousness of one who knows she is conferring an unusual honor.
“I do not know,” faltered Phillis. And then she sat upright, and looked her hostess full in the face. “That will be for you to decide when you hear what I have to say. But I fear”—with a very poor attempt at a smile—“that we shall see very little of each other in the future.”
“Oh, there is a mystery, is there?” returned Mrs. Cheyne, with a little scorn in her manner; and her mouth took one of the downward curves that Mr. Drummond so thoroughly disliked. She had taken an odd fancy to these girls, especially to Phillis, and had thought about them a good deal during a sleepless, uneasy night. Their simplicity, their straightforward unconsciousness, had attracted her in spite of her cynicism. But at the first suspicion of mystery she withdrew into herself rather haughtily. “Do speak out, I beg, Miss Challoner; for if there be one thing that makes me impatient, it is to have anything implied.”
“I am quite of your opinion,” replied Phillis, with equal haughtiness, only it sat more strangely on her girlishness. “That is why I am here to-night,—just to inquire after your foot and explain things.”
“Well?” still more impatiently, for this woman was a spoiled 149 child, and hated to be thwarted, and was undisciplined and imperious enough to ruin all her own chances of happiness.