"Let him take her, then. He is welcome, for all of me," she thought;
and then, as a keen pang of shame and disappointment swept over her,
she laid her head for a moment upon the grass and wept bitterly. "He
must have seen what I expected and I care most for that," she sobbed,
resolving henceforth to guard herself at every point and do all that
lay in her power to further Lucy's interests, "He will thus see how
little I really care," she thought, and, lifting up her head, she tore
in fragments the wreath she had been making, but which she could not
now place on the head of her rival.
Mr. Leighton was flirting terribly with her when she joined the party
assembled around the table, and he never once looked at Anna, though
he saw that her plate was well supplied with the best of everything,
and when at one draught she drained her glass of ice-water, he quietly
placed another within her reach, standing a little before her and
trying evidently to shield her from too critical observation. There
were two at least who were glad when the picnic was over, and various
were the private opinions of the company with regard to the
entertainment. Dr. Bellamy, who had been repeatedly foiled in his
attempts to be especially attentive to Lucy Harcourt, pronounced the
whole thing "a bore." Fanny, who had been highly displeased with the
doctor's deportment, came to the conclusion that the enjoyment did not
compensate for all the trouble, and while the rector thought he had
never spent a more thoroughly wretched day, and Anna would have given
worlds if she had stayed at home, Lucy declared that never in her life
had she had so perfectly delightful a time, always excepting, of
course, "that moonlight sail in Venice."