Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/232

222 "Well, don't stand staring like that. Go and find out what has happened, and come to my room."

The Lord hardened Lucia's heart, even as of old He hardened Pharaoh's. She was angry, not sorry, and that of her which was not angry felt justified. She had known all along that it would be the greatest mistake to ask her to the house with a big party.

Soon the same housemaid, scared, but not supercilious, gave the news. She had left nearly two hours ago.

Lucia felt thoroughly annoyed. Edgar—it was one of his ridiculous plans—had announced his intention of taking Aunt Cathie in to dinner to-night. Pompously, so said Lucia to herself, he had remarked that it would please her. So the tables must be arranged all over again. That, however, she did not propose to do herself.

She took a sheet of notepaper.

""(she wrote), "Aunt Cathie left the house two hours ago, because she didn't like it, as far as I can gather. I send you the letter she left to be given me. I had arranged, as you desired, that you should take her in. Will you please settle whom you will take in now, and make all necessary alterations in the tables? "Yours,"L."

But no compassion, no sense of pathos or pity, touched her. What had occasioned this she did not trouble to think. She felt, indeed, outraged and ill-used. She had made herself charming to her aunt, and this was the result. However—at this moment Lucia's eye fell on the emeralds she was going to wear that evening—however, any difficulty about "Salome" was solved. And the last rehearsal had gone excellently. Perhaps it was all for the best: and she almost repented of the tartness of the note she had sent to her husband. She dismissed Aunt Cathie completely from her mind.

It was at about the same hour that a cab drew up at Fair View Cottage. At the moment from within there was the sound of the Indian gong, which announced dinner. The door was opened, and Cathie and Elizabeth met in the hall.

"Good-evening, Elizabeth," said Cathie. "I have come back. Please don't ask me about it. My fault, nobody else's. I have got rather wet. Shall be down in a quarter of an hour. Don't wait for me."