With all her good-nature, she had the effect of patronising them, as she stood talking about the play with them in her drawl, which she had got back to again. They were admiring her, in her dress of the querulous old nurse, and told her how they never would have known her. But there was an insincerity in the effusion of some of the more nervous women, and in the reticence of the others, who were holding back out of self-respect.
She met Annie and Morrell with eager relief. “Well, Annie?”
“Perfect!”
“Well, now, that's very nice; you can't go beyond perfect, you know. I did do it pretty well, didn't I? Poor Mr. Brandreth! Have you seen him? You must say something comforting to him. He's really been sacrificed in this business. You know he wanted Miss Chapley. She would have made a lovely Juliet. Of course she blames him for it. She thinks he wanted to make up to Miss Northwick, when Miss Northwick was just flinging herself at Jack. Look at her!”
Jack Wilmington and Miss Sue Northwick were standing together near her father and a party of her friends, and she was smiling and talking at him. Eyes, lips, gestures, attitude expressed in the proud girl a fawning eagerness to please the man, who received her homage rather as if it bored him. His indifferent manner may have been one secret of his power over her, and perhaps she was not capable of all the suffering she was capable of inflicting.
Lyra turned to walk toward the house, deflecting a little in the direction of her nephew and Miss Northwick. “Jack!” she drawled over the shoulder next them as she passed, “I wish you'd bring your aunty's wrap to her on the piazza.”
“Why, stay here!” Putney called after her. “They're going to fetch the refreshments out here.”
“Yes, but I'm tired, Ralph, and I can't sit on the grass, at my age.”
She moved on, with her sweeping, lounging pace, and Jack Wilmington, after a moment's hesitation, bowed to Miss Northwick and went after her.
The girl remained apart from her friends, as if expecting his return.