She sighed again, and her lips, which were like curved rose-petals,
unconcealedly quivered. "They were _all_ so cross about Sir Bruce Norman
going to India," she added.

"He will come back," said Emily, benignly; "but he may be too late. Has
he"--ingenuously--"seen Alix?"

Agatha flushed oddly this time. Her delicate skin registered every
emotion exquisitely. "He has seen her, but she was in the school-room,
and--I don't think--"

She did not finish, but stopped uneasily, and sat and gazed out of the
open window into the park. She did not look happy.

The episode of Sir Bruce Norman was brief and even vague. It had begun
well. Sir Bruce had met the beauty at a ball, and they had danced
together more than once. Sir Bruce had attractions other than his old
baronetcy and his coal-mines. He was a good-looking person, with a
laughing brown eye and a nice wit. He had danced charmingly and paid gay
compliments. He would have done immensely well. Agatha had liked him.
Emily sometimes thought she had liked him very much. Her mother had
liked him and had thought he was attracted. But after a number of
occasions of agreeable meetings, they had encountered each other on the
lawn at Goodwood, and he had announced that he was going to India.
Forthwith he had gone, and Emily had gathered that somehow Lady Agatha
had been considered somewhat to blame. Her people were not vulgar enough
to express this frankly, but she had felt it. Her younger sisters had,
upon the whole, made her feel it most. It had been borne in upon her
that if Alix, or Millicent with the red-gold cloak, or even Eve, who was
a gipsy, had been given such a season and such Doucet frocks, they would