Louisa looked at her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” said Emmie, wildly and fiercely. “I tell you I’m writing to Mr. Dyke.”
“Yes, miss,” said Louisa; and she went out of the room very softly, leaving the cat. “I’ll come back,” she whispered, on the threshold.
Emmie wrote: “Darling, it is late, and Louisa is fussing. You know her ways. Well, I have told you all my gossip, and made it another long letter to add to the pile you will have to wade through. Au revoir, my beloved. Good-night. Good-night.”
September had come; and Mildred Parker was talking to her on the telephone, reminding her that there would be no Miss Parker after Thursday next, but a Mrs. Beckett instead.
Mildred spoke of the wedding arrangements, the inexhaustible success of The Danger Signal, the amazing affability and good humour of Mr. Parker.
“He monopolises Alwyn. He trots about after him and crows over him as if Alwyn was a wonderful egg that he had laid, or a treasure that he had pecked out of the gravel. Sometimes I can’t get near Ally because of him. Honestly, Emmeline, he and mummy both go on as if it was they who had found me a husband, and I ought to thank them on my knees for finding me such a nice one.” And Emmie heard the girl’s fresh young laughter.
Then Mildred spoke seriously and with intense affection. She said she knew quite well that Emmeline had some great sorrow, and it had almost broken her heart to be stopped always by that inexorable door, and never once to be allowed to give a hug of sympathy. She was thinking of Emmeline constantly. She hoped and prayed that Emmeline’s private grief, whatever it might be, would presently pass away.
“Thank you, Mildred.”
Then Mildred gave thanks for the cheque, saying she felt ashamed to take it because it was “such a whopper.” And after that she said, although she must not urge Emmeline to come to the wedding itself, she wondered if Emmeline would feel up to coming to a little afternoon party at which friends would see the presents all laid out on tables.