'Nothing!'
'Perhaps that is why I understand,' Rose said.
'No, no, you don't!' Henrietta cried. She could not admit that. She
would not allow Aunt Rose to make such a claim. She looked from
Caroline to Sophia. 'It's we who know,' she said. Yes, it was they
three who were banded together in love for Reginald Mallett, in their
sympathy for each other, in the greater nearness of their relationship
to the person in dispute. She looked up, and she saw through her tears
a slight quiver pass over the face of Rose and she knew she had hurt
her and she was glad of it. 'You must forgive me,' she said to
Caroline.
'Well, well; he was a wretch--a great wretch--a great dear. Let us say
no more about it.'
It was Rose, now, who was in disgrace, and it was Henrietta, Caroline
and Sophia who passed an evening of excessive amiability in the
drawing-room.
Henrietta felt heroically that she had thrown down her glove and it
was annoying, the next morning, to find Rose would not pick it up. She
remained charming; she was inimitably calm: she seemed to have
forgotten her offence of the night before and Henrietta delighted in
the thought that, though Rose did not know it, she and Henrietta were
rivals in love, and she told herself that her own time would come.
She had only to wait. She was a great believer in her own luck, and
had not Aunt Caroline assured her that all the Mallett women were born
to break hearts--all but Aunt Rose? Some day she was bound to meet
that man again and, looking in the glass after the Mallett manner, she
was pleased with what she saw there.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136