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"Wait a minute while I fetch another cup." Lesley knocked over a small table as she ran out again, and Rosamund picked it up, smiling at Iris as she did so. In spite of all she felt about the hag, she must manage somehow to get into her good graces.

"I'm afraid I've made things awkward by arriving before I was expected. But a neighbor of yours very kindly offered me a lift."

"Indeed. Which neighbor?"

"A Mr. Vine—Mr. Charles Vine."

"Oh—him." Iris paused a moment. "His father's one of my tenants. I understand that the son did well in the army, but that doesn't exactly make a neighbor of him. Our nearest neighbor is Sir George Anderson at Barnhorn Place."

Rosamund swallowed, but she was less hurt by Iris's contempt than her own disappointment. She had made sure that her escort was a young man of good family whose notice would give luster to her arrival and whose acquaintance might ultimately be made a part of her hopes. But a farmer's son was useless. He had shed no luster and he could offer no escape into that world which she had viewed with such longing from its soiled fringes—the world of which Phil had given her a glimpse and which ever since she had been determined to enjoy. Yet there had been nothing about him to tell her he did not belong to that world. She felt almost angry with him for being so unlike her idea of a farmer's son. She was sorry that she had encouraged him to think of another meeting. She had better not see him again. She was too susceptible; her eye was too easily taken off the ball of her own interests. Well, judging by Mrs. Winrow's reactions, it would be easy enough to keep out of his way.