The dinner-table in the old hall was surrounded by a very odd party that night. Miss Susan, at the head of the table, in the handsome matronly evening dress which she took to always at the beginning of Winter, did her best to look as usual, though she could not quite keep the panting of her breast from being visible under her black silk and lace. She was breathless, as if she had been running hard; this was the form her agitation took. Miss Augustine, at the other end of the table, sat motionless, absorbed in her own thoughts, and quite unmoved by what was going on around her. Everard had one side to himself, from which he watched with great curiosity the pair opposite him, who came in abruptly--Giovanna, with her black hair slightly ruffled by the wind, and M. Guillaume, rubbing his bald head. This was all the toilet they had made. The meal began almost in silence, with a few remarks only between Miss Susan and Everard. M. Guillaume was pre-occupied. Giovanna was at no time disposed for much conversation. Miss Susan, however, after a little interval, began to talk significantly, so as to attract the strangers.
“You said you had not heard lately from Herbert,” she said, addressing her young cousin. “You don’t know, then, I suppose, that they have made all their plans for coming home?”
“Oh, no, not before the Winter--in May, when we hope it will be quite safe. They are coming home, not for a visit, but to settle. And we must think of looking for a house,” said Miss Susan, with a smile and a sigh.
“Do you mean that you--you who have been mistress of Whiteladies for so long--that you will leave Whiteladies? They will never allow that,” said Everard.
Miss Susan looked him meaningly in the face, with a gleam of her eye toward the strangers on the other side of the table. How could he tell what meaning she wished to convey to him? Men are not clever at interpreting such communications in the best of circumstances, and, perfectly ignorant as he was of the circumstances, how could Everard make out what she wanted? But the look silenced and left him gaping with his mouth open, feeling that something was expected of him, and not knowing what to say.
“Yes, that is my intention,” said Miss Susan, with that jaunty air which had so perplexed and annoyed him before. “When Herbert comes home, he has his sister with him to keep his house. I should be superseded. I should be merely a lodger, a visitor in Whiteladies, and that I could not put up with. I shall go, of course.”