“Katherine, please, I must ask you not to stand there arguing in that rude manner with me,” said Mrs. Pike with intense severity, “Get inside the omnibus at once.  I will speak to your father on the subject when I get home.”  And poor Kitty, so long mistress of her own actions, walked, bitterly humiliated, under the eyes of the many onlookers, and got into the hot, close ’bus, where the air was already heavy with the mixed smell of straw and paint and velvet cushions, which she never could endure.

“Anthony, you may go outside with Daniel if you prefer it, as the ’bus is rather full inside,” said Mrs. Pike, stopping him as he clambered in after Kitty.  But Tony declined the offer.

“I would rather go with Kitty, please,” he said loyally.  “I’d—­I’d rather.”  He had a feeling that by so doing he was somehow helping her.

Kitty, with compressed lips and flashing eyes, took her seat.  She did not notice who was beside her; her only object was to get as far as possible from her aunt, for, feeling as she felt then, she could not possibly talk to her.

“It is a shame to make us go inside.  It always makes me feel ill too; but I’ve always got to,” whispered a low, indignant voice through the rattling and rumbling of the ’bus.  With a start of surprise Kitty turned quickly to see who had spoken, and found that she had seated herself beside her cousin Anna.

For a moment Kitty stared at her, bewildered.  It could not have been Anna who spoke, for Anna was staring absorbedly out of the window opposite her, apparently lost in thought, or fascinated by the scenery through which they were passing.  But just as she had determined that she had made a mistake, a side-long glance from Anna’s restless eyes convinced her that she had not.

“Are you feeling ill now?” asked Kitty, but Anna in reply only glanced nervously at her mother, and bestowed on Kitty a warning kick; and Kitty, indignant with them both, could not bring herself to address another remark to her.  All through that long, wretched drive home Kitty’s indignation waxed hotter and hotter, for she kept her gaze studiously on the window, and the glimpses she got of all the beauty they were passing through only served to increase it.  Here the way lay through the soft dimness of a plantation of young larches, their green, feathery branches almost meeting across the road; then came a long steep hill, up which the horses walked in a leisurely way—­quite delightful if one were outside and able to gaze down at the glorious valley which spread away and away below, until a curve in the road suddenly cut it off from view, but infinitely wearying when every moment was spent in a hot, stuffy atmosphere, with nothing before one’s eyes but the hedge or one’s fellow-passengers.