She rose with a new and malicious resolution to show no sign of
rebellion, to go through the day as if nothing had happened, to deceive
them all, and then--! Exactly what 'and then' meant, she did not explain
even to herself.
In accordance with this plan of action she presented an untroubled front
at breakfast, went out riding with little Ann, and shopping with her
mother afterwards. Owing to this news of Miltoun the journey to Scotland
had been postponed. She parried with cool ingenuity each attempt made
by Lady Valleys to draw her into conversation on the subject of that
meeting at Gustard's, nor would she talk of her brother; in every other
way she was her usual self. In the afternoon she even volunteered to
accompany her mother to old Lady Harbinger's in the neighbourhood of
Prince's Gate. She knew that Harbinger would be there, and with the
thought of meeting that other at 'five o'clock,' had a cynical pleasure
in thus encountering him. It was so complete a blind to them all! Then,
feeling that she was accomplishing a masterstroke; she even told him, in
her mother's hearing, that she would walk home, and he might come if he
cared. He did care.
But when once she had begun to swing along in the mellow afternoon,
under the mellow trees, where the air was sweetened by the South-West
wind, all that mutinous, reckless mood of hers vanished, she felt
suddenly happy and kind, glad to be walking with him.
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