This was Lucy’s first experience of love-making. It is needless to say that it was very far from being her last; but for the moment it was an appalling revelation to her, an incident of the most disturbing and disquieting kind. She was alone for a long time after St. Clair’s withdrawal. It was the morning, the time when Mrs. Ford was occupied with household concerns, and Jock, being freed sooner than usual, had betaken himself to one of his habitual corners with a book, and was thousands of mental miles away from his sister. She remained alone in that pink drawing-room, in which already she had spent so many lonely hours. There she stood hidden behind the curtains, and watched St. Clair speeding across the road that skirted the common to the White House. She had seen him coming and going a great many times with placid indifference. But she could not be indifferent to anything about him now. His hasty pace, so unlike the usual stateliness of demeanor in which he resembled his aunt, the books under his arm, his stumble as he rushed over the rough ground, all went to Lucy’s heart. She was not sorry that she had given forth so determined a decision. That she felt at once, with her usual good sense, was unavoidable. It was not a question upon which any doubt could be left. But she was very sorry to have given him pain, very sorry that it had been necessary. She felt pained and angry that such an appeal should have been made to her, yet at the same time self-reproachful and sore, wondering how it was her fault, and what she could have done. It dismayed her to think that she had voluntarily and deliberately inflicted pain, and yet what alternative had been left her? Now, she thought to herself sadly, here was an end of all possibility of helping a man who was poor, and whom she would have been so glad to help. He would not take anything from her now, he would be angry, he would reject her aid, although so willingly given. This gave Lucy a real pang. She could not get it out of her mind. How foolish, she moralized, to put off a real duty like this, to let it become impossible! She was sitting pondering very sadly upon the whole matter, asking herself wistfully if anything could be done, when Mrs. Rushton came in, full of the plan which Raymond had proposed the evening before. Mrs. Rushton was always elated by a new proposal of pleasure-making. It raised her spirits even when nothing else was involved. But in this case there was a great deal more involved. “It is the very thing to finish the season,” she said; “we have had a very pleasant season, especially since you came back, Lucy. You have made us enjoy it twice as much as we usually do. For one thing, home has been so much more attractive than usual to Ray. Oh, he is always very good, he does not neglect his own people; still young men will be young men, and you know even Shakespeare talks of ‘metal more attractive’ than a mother. So as I was saying-- Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Ford?”