"My dear," said old Mrs. Douglass, looking up concernedly, "surely you're not in earnest!"
"I think," remarked Lady Douglass impartially, "that she is acting with great wisdom."
"I was wishing to-day," the girl went on, raising her voice, "that I hadn't got myself engaged. It happened because of a misunderstanding, and I did it on the impulse of the moment; all the same, it can't be helped. And I was pretty jolly before I met Henry, and—I don't know—I may be pretty jolly again. If I go right out of his life now—why, I shall only think, I shall only remember—"
Old Mrs. Douglass turned in her chair and patted the girl's hand.
"I shall only remember how happy I was all the time after I was lucky enough to meet him. It's over and done with now, and I'm going back home, where I can be trusted. I must be trusted. Here, you don't quite believe me." She bent down to old Mrs. Douglass. "Not even you. I'm a foreigner at this place; a foreigner, trying to learn your habits and customs, and trying to forget my own. Perhaps, one day, you'll see that although I wasn't very refined, and not too well brought up," she raised her face, and her chin went out, "all the same, I did know how to keep myself straight."
Young Mills came across the croquet lawn.
"Want you for a moment, Clarence," she said.
Henry Douglass, descending the staircase slowly and thoughtfully at eight o'clock, asked Rutley whether Miss Higham was in the drawing-room. Rutley answered that the young lady and Mr. Mills had gone. Walked to Cholsey to catch the evening train to town. One of the under-gardeners carried their luggage.
"Quite thought you knew, sir," mentioned Rutley.