Mrs.
Cricklander would be obliged to take an after-cure at the highly
situated castle of an Austrian Prince, an old friend of hers--where the
air was most bracing, she wrote. For her strict instructions to Arabella
before she left, after telling her she might have her mother to keep her
company, and so earning the good creature's deep gratitude, had been:
"You must keep me informed of every slightest turn in Mr.
Derringham--because, until he is perfectly well and amusing again, I
simply can't come back to England. His tragic face bores me to death.
Really, men are too tiresome when there is the slightest thing the
matter with them."
And Arabella had faithfully carried out her instructions.
In common honesty she could not inform her employer that John Derringham
was perfectly well or amusing!
Poor Miss Clinker's happy summer with her mother was being a good deal
dimmed by her unassuaged sympathy and commiseration.
"Of course, he is grieving for that sweet and distinguished girl, Miss
Halcyone La Sarthe," she told herself--and with the old maid's hungering
for romance, which even the highest education cannot quite crush from
the female breast, she longed to know what had parted them.
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