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The truth was, Miss Verena wanted to "shed" her father altogether; she didn't want him pawing round her that way before she began; it didn't add in the least to the attraction. Mr. Pardon expressed the conviction that Miss Chancellor agreed with him in this, and it required a great effort of mind on Olive's part, so small was her desire to act in concert with Mr.
He had spoken to Verena of their little excursion as his last opportunity, let her know that he regarded it not as the beginning of a more intimate acquaintance but as the end even of such relations as already existed between them.
The only cloud on the prospect was the fact that the shops would be closed; but she hoped he would take her back another day, when they were open. She started out unnoticed in the early sunlight, slipping through the kitchen while Verena bent above the stove. To avoid attracting notice, she carried her new hat carefully wrapped up, and had thrown a long grey veil of Mrs.
To this at first Miss Chancellor made no rejoinder; but after a little she said, in the same attitude, "Yes, you could make me." Verena took her hand and held it awhile. "I never will, till I have been through everything myself."
He bent over Verena with a tenderness in which he was careless, now, of observation. "Dearest, I told you, I warned you. I left you alone for ten weeks; but could that make you doubt it was coming? Not for worlds, not for millions, shall you give yourself to that roaring crowd. Don't ask me to care for them, or for any one! What do they care for you but to gape and grin and babble?
Why Basil Ransom had been deputed by fate to exercise this spell was more than she could say poor Verena, who up to so lately had flattered herself that she had a wizard's wand in her own pocket.
Miss Tredgold could throw unutterable scorn into her voice. Verena stepped back, and her pretty face grew first red and then pale. What she would have said next will never be known to history, for at that instant the very good child, Penelope, appeared out of the house. "Is you my Aunty Sophy?" she said. "How are you, Aunty Sophy? I am very pleased to see you."
"I am afraid the distraction we have had this afternoon must last us for a long time," Olive said, without harshness, but with considerable majesty. "Well, now, is he to be respected?" Verena demanded, as the two young women took their way through the early darkness, pacing quietly side by side, in their winter-robes, like women consecrated to some holy office. Olive turned it over a moment.
One thing which she brought was determination, joined to authority; the other thing was money. With these two weapons in her hand, what chance had the girls? It might have been supposed that Miss Tredgold had done enough on the first night of her arrival. She had to a great extent vanquished the cook; and she had, further, told Verena and Pauline what lay before them.
Her eyes rested on the boats she saw in the distance, and she wondered if in one of them Verena were floating to her fate; but so far from straining forward to beckon her home she almost wished that she might glide away for ever, that she might never see her again, never undergo the horrible details of a more deliberate separation.
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