The carriage contained only the Duchess and Annabel. There had been no overt unpleasantness between the ladies of the two families, and Mrs. Atheling would not take the initiative, especially when the question was one referring to the most delicate circumstances of her daughter's life. She talked with the Duchess of her German trip, and Kate gave Annabel the flowers, and hoped she would enjoy her new experience. In five minutes the interview was over; nothing but courteous words had been said, and yet Mrs. Atheling and Kate had, somehow, a sense of intense humiliation. The Duchess's manner had been politely patronising, Annabel's languid and indifferent; and, in some mysterious way, the servants echoed this covert atmosphere of disdain. Little things are so momentous; and the very attitude of the two parties was against the Athelings. From their superb carriage, as from a throne, the Duchess and her companion looked down on the two simply-dressed ladies who had been gathering wild flowers on the roadside. "How provoking!" was Kate's first utterance. "Mother, I will not walk outside the garden again until they go away; I will not!" "I am ashamed of you!" answered Mrs. Atheling, angrily. "Will you make yourself a prisoner for these two women? _Tush!_ Who are they? Be yourself, and who is better than you?" "It is easy talking, Mother. You are as much annoyed as I am. How did they manage to snub us so politely?" "Position is everything, Kate. A woman in a Duke's carriage, with outriders in scarlet, and coachmen and footmen in silver-laced liveries, would snub the Virgin Mary if she met her in a country lane, dressed in pink dimity, and gathering blue-bells. Try and forget the affair." "Annabel looked ill." "It was her white dress. A woman with her skin ought to know better than to wear white." "Oh, Mother! if Piers had been with them, what should I have done?" "I wish he had been there! You were never more lovely. I saw you for a moment, standing at the side of the carriage; with your brown hair blowing, and your cheeks blushing, and your hands full of flowers, and I thought how beautiful you were; and I wish Piers had been there." "They go away on Saturday. I shall be glad when Saturday is over. I do not think I could bear to see Piers. I should make a little fool of myself." "Not you! Not you! But it is just as well to keep out of danger."