Molly took all this quite gravely, and did not at first notice the
smile on his face.
"Oh! I am so sorry!" said she. "But will you please tell him how it
all happened. Lady Harriet called the very day when it was settled
that I was not to go to--" Cynthia's wedding, she was going to add,
but she suddenly stopped short, and, blushing deeply, changed the
expression, "go to London, and she planned it all in a minute, and
convinced mamma and papa, and had her own way. There was really no
resisting her."
"I think you will have to tell all this to my father yourself if you
mean to make your peace. Why can you not come on to the Hall when you
leave the Towers?"
To go in the cool manner suggested from one house to another, after
the manner of a royal progress, was not at all according to Molly's
primitive home-keeping notions. She made answer,--
"I should like it very much, some time. But I must go home first.
They will want me more than ever now--"
Again she felt herself touching on a sore subject, and stopped short.
Roger became annoyed at her so constantly conjecturing what he must
be feeling on the subject of Cynthia's marriage. With sympathetic
perception she had discerned that the idea must give him pain; and
perhaps she also knew that he would dislike to show the pain; but she
had not the presence of mind or ready wit to give a skilful turn to
the conversation. All this annoyed Roger, he could hardly tell why.
He determined to take the metaphorical bull by the horns. Until that
was done, his footing with Molly would always be insecure; as it
always is between two friends, who mutually avoid a subject to which
their thoughts perpetually recur.
"Ah, yes!" said he. "Of course you must be of double importance now
Miss Kirkpatrick has left you. I saw her marriage in _The Times_
yesterday."
His tone of voice was changed in speaking of her, but her name had
been named between them, and that was the great thing to accomplish.
"Still," he continued, "I think I must urge my father's claim for a
short visit, and all the more, because I can really see the apparent
improvement in your health since I came,--only yesterday. Besides,
Molly," it was the old familiar Roger of former days who spoke now,
"I think you could help us at home. Aimée is shy and awkward with my
father, and he has never taken quite kindly to her,--yet I know they
would like and value each other, if some one could but bring them
together,--and it would be such a comfort to me if this could take
place before I have to leave."