She lay awake all night. Her brain, incapable of thought, kept turning
round and round, showing her on an endless rolling screen the images of
Lindley and Nannie Learoyd, clinging together, loosening, swinging apart,
clinging together. When she came down on Sunday morning breakfast was
over.
Sunday--Sunday. She remembered. Last night was Saturday night. Lindley
Vickers was coming to Sunday dinner and Sunday supper. She would have to
get away somewhere, to Dorsy or the Sutcliffes. She didn't want to see
him again. She wanted to forget that she ever had seen him.
Her mother and Dan had shut themselves up in the smoking-room; she found
them there, talking. As she came in they stopped abruptly and looked at
each other. Her mother began picking at the pleats in her gown with
nervous, agitated fingers. Dan got up and left the room.
"Well, Mary, you'll not see Mr. Vickers again. He's just told Dan he
isn't coming."
Then he knew that she had seen him in the lane with Nannie.
"I don't want to see him," she said.
"It's a pity you didn't think of that before you put us in such a
position."
She understood Lindley; but she wasn't even trying to understand her
mother. The vexed face and picking fingers meant nothing to her. She was
saying to herself, "I can't tell Mamma I saw him with Nannie in the lane.
I oughtn't to have seen him. He didn't know anybody was there. He didn't
want me to see him. I'd be a perfect beast to tell her."
Her mother went on: "I don't know what to do with you, Mary. One would
have thought my only daughter would have been a comfort to me, but I
declare you've given me more trouble than any of my children."
"More than Dan?"
"Dan hadn't a chance. He'd have been different if your poor father hadn't
driven him out of the house. He'd be different now if your Uncle Victor
had kept him.... It's hard for poor Dan if he can't bring his friends to
the house any more because of you."
"Because of me?"
"Because of your folly."
She understood. Her mother believed that she had frightened Lindley away.
She was thinking of Aunt Charlotte.
It would have been all right if she could have told her about Nannie;
then Mamma would have seen why Lindley couldn't come.
"I don't care," she thought. "She may think what she likes. I can't tell
her."