Elma went for it and produced it with quaking heart. The writing seemed something very different to any of the letters which came to Mabel.

It was from Mr. Symington.

It explained in the gentlest possible way that he had learned from Miss Meredith that his presence in Ridgetown caused some difficulty of which he had never even dreamed. He wrote as a great friend of her dear father's, and a most loyal admirer of her family, to say the easiest matter in the world was being effected, and that his visit to Ridgetown had come to an end.

The paper shook gently in Mabel's fingers, and fell quivering and uncertain to the floor. She looked up piteously and quite helplessly at Elma, like a child seeking shelter, and then buried her head on the couch. She cried in long, strangled sobs, while Elma stood staring at her.

Elma pulled herself together at last.

"Mabel dear, I'm going to read it."

Mabel nodded into her bent arms.

"Oh but," said Elma after shakingly perusing that doc.u.ment, "but he can't--he can't do this. It's dreadful. It's like blaming you! What can Miss Meredith have said? Oh! Mabel! Mabel, I shall cut that woman dead wherever and however I meet her. Oh, Mabel--what a creature! Don't you cry. Papa will explain to Mr. Symington. He will believe papa.

Papa will explain that you had nothing to do with it, that you don't mind whether he goes or stays--that----"

"But I do mind," said Mabel in cold, awe-struck tones. "That's the awful part. And it's nothing but the smallness of Robin that has taught me, Mr. Symington is the only man worth knowing in the whole earth."

She clasped her hands in a hopeless way.

"And he has been sent away, banished, by the very man who should have made it impossible for me to see any good quality in any one else except himself."

"Who will play Mr. Meredith's accompaniments now?" Elma asked. "Why they can't get on without you, dear." She still believed that just as plays were arranged, so should the affairs of Mabel come back to their original placidity.

"I shall never play another note for Robin Meredith," said Mabel.

Elma could not yet doubt but that Robin would come directly he knew how satisfactorily he had disposed of his rival. One hoped that Mr.

Symington had only explained so far to Mabel. That afternoon they were to meet Isobel, so that every one was more or less occupied, and always on this same evening of the week, Friday, the Merediths were at an open "at home" which the friends of the Leightons attended at the White House. The question was, would the Merediths come?

Mabel did not seem to care whether they came or not. She sat, crushing the letter and not looking at Elma.

"Elma dear," she said at last, "I can't stand this. I shall tell papa.

Mamma will only say 'I told you so' for our having been such friends with the Merediths. But I can't bear that she shouldn't know I'm not ashamed of anything," she caught her breath with a slight sob. "But I'm done with Robin."

It seemed magnificent to Elma that for her own honour she should jeopardize so much. Men like Mr. Meredith were so rare in Ridgetown.

Yet when she asked her, couldn't she still admire Robin, Mabel said very truthfully then "No."

Elma would have liked to say that it didn't matter about Mr. Symington.

"Robin will never enter this house again," Mabel said with quivering lip.

But he came--several times.

CHAPTER XV

The Arrival

The 4.50 train hammered and pounded in a jerkily driven manner to Ridgetown. It was hot, and most of the windows lay open in the endeavour to catch any air that had escaped being stifled in smoke and the dust of iron. Miss Meredith occupied a first-cla.s.s carriage together with two people. One, an old gentleman who travelled daily and who did not count, the other a dark-eyed girl of pale complexion. She wore irreproachably fitting tweeds, and as though to contradict the severity of their trim appearance, a very flamboyant red hat. It was tip-tilted in a smart way over her nose, and had an air of seeming to make every other hat within eyeshot scream dejectedly, "I come from the country."

The red hat came from the town, London presumably. The dark girl seemed in a petulant mood, as though the atmosphere of the carriage stifled her in more ways than by its being uncontrollably hot. It was out of gear with the smooth, madonna-like appearance of her features, that she should be petulant at all. There was an indescribable placidity about her carriage and expression which contradicted her movements at this moment of nearing Ridgetown. She caught Miss Meredith's eye on her, and seemed annoyed at the interest it displayed. Miss Meredith was much impressed by her appearance. As a rule, she confined her ideas of people in Ridgetown either to their being "refined" or "rather vulgar."

This girl had not the air of being either of those two. She was a type which had never been dissected in Ridgetown. It was as evident that one would neither say of her that she was the complete lady, nor yet that she was un-ladylike. One could say that she was good-looking, adorably good-looking. Calm, lucid eyes, containing a calculating challenge in their expression, milky complexion framing their mysterious depths of darkness, red lips parting occasionally with her breathing over startlingly white teeth, this was all very different to the rosebud complexions, the rather shy demeanour of Ridgetown.

Miss Meredith could act as a very capable little policeman when she became interested in any one. She determined to act the policeman now that she was aware this must be a visitor to Ridgetown. They had pa.s.sed the last slow stopping-place, and were nearing what must be her destination. Each station without the name of Ridgetown had evidently annoyed the dark girl.

"The next station is Ridgetown," said Miss Meredith pleasantly.

The dark girl stared.

"Oh, ah, is it?" she asked negligently.

An old gentleman rose from the corner and began collecting his belongings.

"May I help you?" he asked, and lifted down her dressing case.

She became radiant.

"Thank you so much," she said very gracefully.

Miss Meredith felt in an annoyed manner that her own overtures had been unrecognized in favour of these. She could be an abject person, however, wherever she intended to make an impression, and decided not to be non-plussed too soon. Doubtless the dark girl was about to visit some friend of her own. She rose at her end of the carriage to get a parasol from the rack. It allowed the new arrival to swing out on the platform even before the train was stopped.

Miss Meredith saw Isobel being received by the Leightons.

This was enough to allow of Miss Meredith's slipping away unnoticed before a porter came to find the neglected dressing bag. But she went unwillingly, and in a new riot of opinion. The truth came forcibly that the new cousin would be a great sensation in Ridgetown. It was strange that she had never dreamed that the dark girl might be the Leightons'

cousin. No occasion would be complete without her. A few weeks ago, and she might have had her first reception at the Merediths', where they should have had the distinction of introducing her. Now, owing to late events, relations might be rather strained between themselves and the Leightons.

Miss Meredith had grown more ambitious each year with regard to her brother. She was the ladder by which he had climbed into social prominence in Ridgetown. Her diligence overcame all obstacles. At first, she had deemed it delightful that he should be attached to Mabel, now it seemed much more appropriate that he should make the most of the Dudgeons. Through the Leightons they had formed a slight acquaintance there, which had lately shown signs of development. It became necessary to sow seeds of disaffection in the mind of Robin where the Leightons were concerned. He had become too much of their world. He was a man not easily influenced, and he had had a great affection for Mabel. But the constant wearing of the stone had invariably been the treatment for Robin, and lately a good deal of wearing had been necessary on account of Mr. Symington.

She began to recall just how much she had said to Mr. Symington. Her face burned with the recollection that he had shown how much he thought of Mabel. She had put the matter from Mabel's point of view. While Mr.

Symington was there, Mabel's happiness with Robin was interfered with.

Miss Meredith had intended to infer that it was his constant attendance at the White House which was being called in question. Whereas, he had already, unknown to her, settled on it as meaning Ridgetown. He had interrupted her abruptly, with stern lips, "Pardon me, but will you let me know distinctly,--is Miss Leighton engaged to your brother?" Miss Meredith saw her chance and took it at a run. "Yes," she said. It was hardly a lie, considering how Robin and Mabel had been linked for so many years in a tacit sort of manner.

"That--I had not understood," said Mr. Symington. Whereupon he immediately wrote his letter to Mabel.

Miss Meredith had always had her own ideas of Mr. Symington. He was not the companion for these very young girls. He was not old, on the other hand, but he possessed a temperament which put him on another plane than that of the rather boisterous Leighton family. On the Meredith plane, if one would have the words spoken.

"Robin," she said that evening, after the arrival of Isobel, "let us go down to the Leightons' as though nothing had happened."

Robin turned a reserved mask of a countenance in her direction.

"You women can do anything," he said.

The weariness of being without these kaleidoscopic friends of theirs had already beset him. They were still in time to find the old level again.

It would certainly be a freezing world without the Leightons. Everybody knew that one might get social advantages with the Dudgeons, but one had always a ripping time with the Leightons.

Miss Meredith, on her part, began to wonder, now that Mr. Symington was warned and would keep Robin from feeling the desirability of the girl whom two men were after, whether Robin himself might be more gently weaned than by thus being borne away on an open rupture. Robin was in the position of a man who had been brought up by mother and sister.