“Netta, I’ve had a real bad day!”

“And why, please, my lady?” said Annette rather severely, as she released herself.

“First I had a quarrel with Nora—­then some boring people came to lunch—­then I had a tiresome ride—­and now Aunt Ellen has been pointing out to me that it’s all my fault she has to get a new dress, because people will ask me to dinner-parties.  I don’t want to go to dinner-parties!”

And Connie fell back on her pillows, with a great stretch, her black brows drawn over eyes that still smiled beneath them.

“It’s very ungrateful of you to talk of a tiresome ride—­when that gentleman took such pains to get you a nice horse,” said Annette, still tidying and folding as she moved about the room.  Constance watched her, her eyes shining absently as the thoughts passed through them.  At last she said: 

“Do come here, Annette!”

Annette came, rather unwillingly.  She sat down on the end of Constance’s bed, and took out some knitting from her pocket.  She foresaw a conversation in which she would need her wits about her, and some mechanical employment steadied the mind.

“Annette, you know,” said Constance slowly, “I’ve got to be married some time.”

“I’ve heard you say that before.”  Annette began to count some stitches.

“Oh, it’s all very well,” said Constance, with amusement—­“you think you know all about me, but you don’t.  You don’t know, for instance, that I went to ride over a week ago with a young man, without telling you, or Aunt Ellen, or Uncle Ewen, or anybody!” She waited to see the effect of her announcement.  Annette did appear rather startled.

“I suppose you met him on the road?”

“I didn’t!  I made an appointment with him.  We went to a big wood, some miles out of Oxford, belonging to some people he knows, where there are beautiful grass rides.  He has the key of the gates—­we sent away the groom—­and I was an hour alone with him—­quite!  There!”

There was a defiant accent on the last word.  Annette shook her head.  She had been fifteen years in the Risboroughs’ service, and remembered Connie when she was almost a baby.

“Whatever were you so silly for?  You know your mamma wouldn’t have let you.”

“Well, I’ve not got my mamma,” said Connie slowly.  “And I’m not going to be managed by Aunt Ellen, Netta.  I intend to run my own show.”

“Who is it?” said Annette, knitting busily.

Connie laughed.

“Do you think I’m going to tell you?”

“You needn’t.  I’ve got eyes in my head.  It’s that gentleman you met in France.”

Connie swung herself round and laid violent hands on Annette’s knitting.

“You shan’t knit.  Look at me!  You can’t say he’s not good-looking?”

“Which he knows—­a deal sight more than is good for him,” said Annette, setting her mouth a little grimly.

“Everybody knows when they’re good-looking, you dear silly!  Of course, he’s most suitable—­dreadfully so.  And I can’t make up my mind whether I care for him a bit!”