The fortitude, which had sustained Mildred during the evening, vanished with the last of the guests. She had designed to come to an explanation with her mother before she slept; but she now felt quite unequal to the task. Lassitude of body increased depression of mind. In sad, almost in solemn accents, she bade her mother and father good night, and retired to rest.
Mrs. Pendarrel, in her secret self, was by no means so well satisfied with her daughter's behaviour, as she pretended to her guests. She had already discovered in Mildred a firmness of character, resembling, if not equalling, her own; and she was rather afraid that this night's tranquillity foreboded a stormy morrow. However, she was not a woman to be easily daunted, and she did not suffer her anxiety to disturb her slumbers.
The day following a party is always dismal. One may remember the second scene in Hogarth's Marriage à la Mode. But the revelry of the night had not disordered the pleasant morning-room, where Mildred presided over the breakfast equipage. It was again a beautiful day. Light clouds were moving gently across the sky; the budding trees were waving in a soft west wind; there was that seeming exuberance of life in the appearance of nature, which is always so exhilarating.
Little influence, however, did it produce on either of the three personages who sat at breakfast. Mr. Pendarrel was engaged in a very prosaic and business-like attack on a dindon aux truffes, a relic of the past night. And he preferred the metropolitan parks to any country lawns and groves. As soon as he had appeased his appetite, or his gourmandism, he went to look to the economy of the establishment. His wife, who enjoyed a true relish for rural pleasures, noted her daughter's quivering eyelids, and trembling fingers, with the consciousness that a scene was coming, in which she might find her part more difficult than she had flattered herself. She had dismissed the breakfast things, and was herself about to leave the room, when Mildred, who was leaning against the side of the window, and gazing wistfully on the garden, turned and arrested her steps.
"Mother," she said, "I must speak with you."
"And what have you to say, Mildred," asked Mrs. Pendarrel, with a freezing smile, "which requires so formal an introduction?"
"I did not know, mother," Mildred replied, "that the party, last night, was to be dedicated, in any way, to my ... my honour. If I had, I would not have been present."
"You will be present, Miss Pendarrel," Esther said, "wherever your father and I choose you to be present."
"Indeed, mother, sorry I am to say it," answered the daughter, mournfully, "I will not, except as a captive. The company shall see my bondage."
"Mildred, let me hear no more of this folly," exclaimed Mrs. Pendarrel. "Captive! Bondage! What romance have you been reading lately?"