“How do you do, Miss Elinor? It’s nice to see you. Mrs. Welman has been looking forward to you coming down.”
Elinor said:
“Yes—it’s a long time. I—Nurse O’Brien sent me to look for you. She wants to lift Mrs. Welman up, and she says you usually do it with her.”
Mary said: “I’ll go at once.”
She moved off, breaking into a run. Elinor stood looking after her. Mary ran well, grace in every movement.
Roddy said softly: “Atalanta…”
Elinor did not answer. She stood quite still for a minute or two. Then she said:
“It’s nearly lunchtime. We’d better go back.”
They walked side by side towards the house.
V
“Oh! Come on, Mary. It’s Garbo, and a grand film—all about Paris. And a story by a tiptop author. There was an opera of it once.”
“It’s frightfully nice of you, Ted, but I really won’t.”
Ted Bigland said angrily:
“I can’t make you out nowadays, Mary. You’re different—altogether different.”
“No, I’m not, Ted.”
“You are! I suppose because you’ve been away to that grand school and to Germany. You’re too good for us now.”
“It’s not true, Ted. I’m not like that.”
She spoke vehemently.
The young man, a fine sturdy specimen, looked at her appraisingly in spite of his anger.
“Yes, you are. You’re almost a lady, Mary.”
Mary said with sudden bitterness:
“Almost isn’t much good, is it?”
He said with sudden understanding:
“No, I reckon it isn’t.”
Mary said quickly:
“Anyway, who cares about that sort of thing nowadays? Ladies and gentlemen, and all that!”
“It doesn’t matter like it did—no,” Ted assented, but thoughtfully. “All the same, there’s a feeling. Lord, Mary, you look like a duchess or a countess or something.”
Mary said:
“That’s not saying much. I’ve seen countesses looking like old-clothes women!”
“Well, you know what I mean.”