“Oh, I couldn’t,” said Mildred, flattered but overwhelmed by this surprising invitation. “It would seem such awful cheek.”
“Am I so venerable and forbidding?” asked Miss Verinder, with mild reproach.
“Of course not,” said Mildred eagerly. “No, I shall be delighted, if you’ll really let me. I think it’s absolutely sweet of you—Emmeline. Well now, Emmeline,”—and Mildred repeated the name firmly, as if feeling great satisfaction in using this unceremonious form of address;—“The fact is, Emmeline—”
And with a voluble flood she narrated how she had fallen deeply and perhaps even foolishly in love with a young man; how Mr. and Mrs. Parker had made a monstrous absurd fuss about it; and how, because of it, the once comfortable home in Ennismore Gardens was swept with tempest, wrath, and pain.
“You understand, Emmeline? I mean to say, they really are behaving like people who have been bitten by a mad dog. In one way, I mean to say—you know—it’s all too ridiculous for words. The things they say! The things, don’t you know, they threaten to do. Well, I mean to say—”
Mildred’s eyes were flashing, she pulled her gloves from hand to hand, and, prattling on, became so involved with mean-to-says and don’t-you-knows that she floundered suddenly to silence.
“Emmeline,” and she changed her position on the sofa, “I think I’d better start at the very beginning.”
“That is always a good place to start at,” said Miss Verinder, smiling sympathetically.
“Then what I want you to understand is that I’m very much in earnest. It’s no silliness—or infatuation, as mother says—or any rot of that sort. It’s the real thing.” As she said this Mildred’s pretty commonplace little face became all soft and tender, her lips quivered, and in spite of her modernity she had the aspect of a quite small child who will burst into tears if you speak harshly to it. “You must understand,” and she suddenly turned her head away, “I wasn’t even thinking of love—much less hunting for it. It came upon me like a thunderclap.”
“Like a thunderclap!” Miss Verinder echoed the words, and drew in her breath, making the sound of a faint sigh. “Go on, Mildred dear.”