“What dress are you going to wear this afternoon, Bessie?” she asked rather abruptly, and her manner was a little off-hand. “I shall be in white, of course, and I shall wear my gray dust cloak for the roads, but——”
“What dress!” returned Bessie, rather puzzled at the question; she was hot and tired from her long ride, and had been looking forward to an afternoon of delicious idleness. “Is any one coming? I mean, are we going anywhere?”
“Why, of course,” replied Edna impatiently, and she did not seem in the best of tempers; “it is Thursday, is it not? and we are engaged for the polo match. You must make haste and finish dressing, for we must start directly after luncheon.”
“Do you mean that Mr. Sefton is going to drive us over to Staplehurst, after all?” asked Bessie, feeling very much astonished at Richard’s change of plan; he had not even spoken on the subject at breakfast-time, but he must have arranged it afterward.
“Richard!” rather contemptuously. “Richard is by this time lunching at the Fordham Inn, with half a dozen stupid farmers. Have you forgotten that he flatly refused to drive us at all? Oh, I have not forgotten his lecture, I assure you, though it does not seem to have made much impression on you. Well, why are you looking at me with such big eyes, Bessie, as though you found it difficult to understand me?”
“Because I don’t understand you Edna,” replied Bessie frankly. “You know both your mother and brother objected to Captain Grant’s invitation; you cannot surely intend to go in opposition to their wishes.”
“Their wishes! I suppose you mean Richard’s wish, for mamma never opened her lips on the subject; she just listened to Richard’s tirade.”
“But she did not contradict him; and surely you must have seen from her face that she agreed with every word.” Bessie did not dare to add that Mrs. Sefton had expressed her strong disapproval of Captain Grant to her. “She was looking at you so anxiously all the time.”
“Oh, that is only mamma’s fussiness. Of course I know she does not want me to go. I don’t mean to pretend that I am not aware of that, but mamma knows that I generally have my own way in this sort of thing, and she did not actually forbid it.”
“Oh, Edna! what can that matter when you know her real wishes?”