For some days after the ball Cynthia seemed languid, and was very
silent. Molly, who had promised herself fully as much enjoyment in
talking over the past gaiety with Cynthia as in the evening itself,
was disappointed when she found that all conversation on the subject
was rather evaded than encouraged. Mrs. Gibson, it is true, was ready
to go over the ground as many times as any one liked; but her words
were always like ready-made clothes, and never fitted individual
thoughts. Anybody might have used them, and, with a change of proper
names, they might have served to describe any ball. She repeatedly
used the same language in speaking about it, till Molly knew the
sentences and their sequence even to irritation.
"Ah! Mr. Osborne, you should have been there! I said to myself many a
time how you really should have been there--you and your brother, of
course."
"I thought of you very often during the evening!"
"Did you? Now that I call very kind of you. Cynthia, darling! Do you
hear what Mr. Osborne Hamley was saying?" as Cynthia came into the
room just then. "He thought of us all on the evening of the ball."
"He did better than merely remember us then," said Cynthia, with her
soft slow smile. "We owe him thanks for those beautiful flowers,
mamma."
"Oh!" said Osborne, "you must not thank me exclusively. I believe it
was my thought, but Roger took all the trouble of it."
"I consider the thought as everything," said Mrs. Gibson. "Thought is
spiritual, while action is merely material."
This fine sentence took the speaker herself by surprise; and in such
conversation as was then going on, it is not necessary to accurately
define the meaning of everything that is said.
"I'm afraid the flowers were too late to be of much use, though,"
continued Osborne. "I met Preston the next morning, and of course we
talked about the ball. I was sorry to find he had been beforehand
with us."
"He only sent one nosegay, and that was for Cynthia," said Molly,
looking up from her work. "And it did not come till after we had
received the flowers from Hamley." Molly caught a sight of Cynthia's
face before she bent down again to her sewing. It was scarlet in
colour, and there was a flash of anger in her eyes. Both she and her
mother hastened to speak as soon as Molly had finished, but Cynthia's
voice was choked with passion, and Mrs. Gibson had the word.
"Mr. Preston's bouquet was just one of those formal affairs any one
can buy at a nursery-garden, which always strike me as having no
sentiment in them. I would far rather have two or three lilies of the
valley gathered for me by a person I like, than the most expensive
bouquet that could be bought!"