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"There's not many people I care about going with since I came back from boarding school, and even for those I do go with Vassie spoils it by saying I'm demeaning myself. She's such a fine lady." "And aren't you?" asked Ishmael, laughing; "that was my first thought when I saw you, anyway." "Was it?" She dimpled with pleasure, but added shrewdly: "I'm not one, though.
Oh, if I can't be free of him even now he's working at Botallack " "I had such a quarrel with Mamma about that this morning," struck in Vassie, who disliked the conversation and thought she had been out of it long enough.
Blanche leant up alongside her stook and Vassie sat watching her, while Judy, who had seen a wistful look on Phoebe's baby face, drew her into such superficial personal talk as she could best compass. "When do you go back to London?" was Vassie's abrupt and not very happy opening.
The younger girl's personality seemed to be drowned in the bright effulgence of the elder as her slight form in the swelling folds of blue taffeta skirt that overflowed her. "What about Mr. Tonkin?" ventured Phoebe; "he'd have you fast enough. And he's almost as good as a clergyman, though of course not as good as an officer...." "Old Tonkin, indeed!" cried Vassie indignantly.
I knew the landlords and the devil's tricks they'd be up to.... Saving your presence, Ishmael, old fellow, landlords are the scum of the earth!" "At least you can't accuse me of being an absentee landlord," said Ishmael, smiling. "No, indeed," chimed in Vassie almost indignantly. "If you knew all he's done here, Dan, it's like a miracle.
Annie's querulous remarks faded through sheer pride into silence. The Parson, a welcome addition, arrived for supper; greasy Tonkin, inevitable though not so greatly a source of pleasure, drove over from Penzance and sat absorbing Vassie, so to speak, at every pore.
They hardly spoke of the matter beyond making the necessary arrangements, and when Vassie had a fit of weeping in her room it was for the mother she remembered from her childhood, the mother of stormy tendernesses that nevertheless were sweet to her at the time, and whom she thought of now instead of letting her mind dwell on the woman who had been growing more and more distorted these last few years.
She herself had never seemed so fascinating and so sure; Vassie was swept away by her for the first time; Phoebe lost a certain sense of grudge in awed admiration; Judy, in speech and action, contrived to lead up to her friend, whole-heartedly exploiting the wonder of her. John-James and Killigrew were probably the only two there who did not acknowledge the sway.
"Is anything the matter, Tom?" asked Annie artlessly. "No, what should there be?" demanded Tom in a slightly contemptuous fashion. "Can't I want to see you without that? Don't give me away before the visitor, especially as Ishmael's such an attentive son." Annie began to sniff, and Vassie bade him, in an angry undertone, be quiet.
And that was, of course, precisely why he had loved her, and why the love died harder than the reasoned loves of older years which respond to reasoning. Affairs at home were not likely to provide a pleasurable change for Ishmael's thoughts. Vassie, it was true, meant more to him, as he to her, than ever before.
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