“Ay,” with contempt. “And so will a many more at your heels.”
“No one saw me come here,” Henrietta said.
“No. But it will be odd if no one sees you leave here. I met Bishop as I came, and another with him, hot-foot after you, both, and raising the country as fast as they could.”
Henrietta frowned. She gazed through the window. Then she looked again at Bess.
“Is he far from here?” she asked.
“That’s telling, and I’m not going to tell. Far or near, I don’t see how you are to go to him, unless——” She broke off, paused a moment, and then, as if she put away a thought that had occurred to her, “No,” she said with decision, “I see no way. There is no way.”
To Henrietta, the girl, the situation, the surroundings, and not least her own rôle, were odious. Merely to negotiate with such an one as this was a humiliation; but to endure her open scorn, to feel her cheeks burn under the fire of her taunts, was hateful. Yet failure in the enterprise from which she had let herself expect so much was still worse—still worse; and the prospect of it overcame her pride. She could not accept the defeat of all her hopes and expectations. She could not.
“You said ‘unless,’” she retorted.
Bess laughed.
“Ay, but it’s an ‘unless,’” she answered contemptuously, “that you are not the one to fill up.”