Jeremy actually forgot the presence of ladies, and went so far as to swear aloud. Nor did they reprove him; probably it gave their feelings some vicarious relief.
“I think that we had better be going home; it is late,” said Dorothy, after a pause. “Jeremy, will you go and order the carriage?”
Jeremy went.
Florence said nothing, but she took her fan in both her hands and bent it slowly, so that the ivory sticks snapped one by one with a succession of sharp reports. Then she threw it down, and set her heel upon it, and ground it into the path. There was something inexpressibly cruel about the way in which she crushed the pretty toy; the action seemed to be the appropriate and unconscious outcome of some mental process, and it is an odd proof of the excitement under which they were both la
