‘It is important that you get there this afternoon, I suppose?’
‘Yes. You know why?’
‘Not at all.’
‘The Hunt Ball. It was fixed for the sixth, and this is the sixth. I thought they might have asked you.’
‘No,’ said Somerset, a trifle gloomily. ‘No, I am not asked. But it is a great task for you—a long journey and a ball all in one day.’
‘Yes: Charlotte said that. But I don’t mind it.’
‘You are glad you are going. Are you glad?’ he said softly.
Her air confessed more than her words. ‘I am not so very glad that I am going to the Hunt Ball,’ she replied confidentially.
‘Thanks for that,’ said he.
She lifted her eyes to his for a moment. Her manner had suddenly become so nearly the counterpart of that in the tea-house that to suspect any deterioration of affection in her was no longer generous. It was only as if a thin layer of recent events had overlaid her memories of him, until his presence swept them away.