Miss Bartlett returned the embrace with tenderness and warmth. But she was not a stupid woman, and she knew perfectly well that Lucy did not love her, but needed her to love. For it was in ominous tones that she said, after a long pause: "Dearest Lucy, how will you ever forgive me?"
Lucy was on her guard at once, knowing by bitter experience what forgiving Miss Bartlett meant. Her emotion relaxed, she modified her embrace a little, and she said: "Charlotte dear, what do you mean? As if I have anything to forgive!"
"You have a great deal, and I have a very great deal to forgive myself, too. I know well how much I vex you at every turn."
"But no--"
Miss Bartlett assumed her favourite role, that of the prematurely aged martyr.
"Ah, but yes! I feel that our tour together is hardly the success I had hoped. I might have known it would not do. You want some one younger and stronger and more in sympathy with you. I am too uninteresting and old-fashioned--only fit to pack and unpack your things."
"Please--"
"My only consolation was that you found people more to your taste, and were often able to leave me at home. I had my own poor ideas of what a lady ought to do, but I hope I did not inflict them on you more than was necessary. You had your own way about these rooms, at all events."
"You mustn't say these things," said Lucy softly.
She still clung to the hope that she and Charlotte loved each other, heart and soul. They continued to pack in silence.
"I have been a failure," said Miss Bartlett, as she struggled with the straps of Lucy's trunk instead of strapping her own. "Failed to make you happy; failed in my duty to your mother. She has been so generous to me; I shall never face her again after this disaster."
"But mother will understand. It is not your fault, this trouble, and it isn't a disaster either."
"It is my fault, it is a disaster. She will never forgive me, and rightly. Fur instance, what right had I to make friends with Miss Lavish?"
"Every right."
"When I was here for your sake? If I have vexed you it is equally true that I have neglected you. Your mother will see this as clearly as I do, when you tell her."
Lucy, from a cowardly wish to improve the situation, said: "Why need mother hear of it?"