After lunch Adelaide's cousin, Mr. Weathergay, said to Nancy:
"There's a jolly old church, I hear, at Ribbleswaite, that seems the sort of thing one ought to see. Won't you show it to me?"
And Nancy giggled that churches weren't much in her line, but she wouldn't mind a walk.
Then Miles Buchanan bore off Freda Mason, and her two brothers wrangled for the right to escort Mrs. Farrell, a charming girl, who was staying with the Warings. The company scattered into couples and quartettes. Muriel still sat on her log, playing with a strand of long coarse grass, and hating picnics.
She saw neither the budding woods nor the delicate cream of primroses upon the banks. She saw only the ignominy of her own position, and with averted head she dug her fingers into the soft turf as couple after couple vanished through the trembling curtain of foliage. She was glad that her mother was not there to see her shame, and yet this probably only meant a short respite, because Mrs. Waring was certain to betray, as she had done before, the curious solitude of Mrs. Hammond's daughter.
From the other side of the abandoned meal she could hear Delia's careless voice:
"Well, you can lie and smoke in the sun if you like, Godfrey. The grass is wet, and you are growing fat from idleness, but I don't care. I, the only Socialist among you, am going to celebrate Primrose Day properly and pick primroses. Coming too, Muriel?"
No wonder that Delia was unpopular, monopolizing Godfrey all through lunch, and then abandoning him to smoke his pipe alone. The sheer wanton waste of it appalled Muriel. She shook her head.
"No, thank you," she said, shivering a little at her courage. To have gone with Delia would have been to put an end to her misery, but it would also have been a confession of defeat.
Delia went, and Muriel was left alone upon her log. Bobby Mason, defeated by his brother in the contest for Mrs. Farrell, was pretending to do something scientific to the fire, and Mrs. Marshall Gurney was directing the repacking of the luncheon baskets. She looked round the clearing, then beckoned Bobby majestically to her side.