Besides Dinah was undoubtedly useful at home, and would certainly grow out of hand if she left her.
Not very willingly had she agreed to let her go upon this Alpine jaunt with the de Vignes, but Billy had been so keen, and the invitation would scarcely have been extended to him alone.
The whole idea had originated between the heads of the two families, riding home together after a day's hunting. Dinah had chanced to come into the conversation, and the Colonel, comparing her with that of his own daughter and being stirred to pity, had suggested that the two children might like to join them on their forthcoming expedition. Bathurst had at once accepted the tentative proposal, and had blurted forth the whole matter to his assembled family on his return with the result that Billy's instant and eager delight had made it virtually impossible for his mother to oppose the suggestion.
Dinah had been delighted too, almost deliriously so; but she had kept her pleasure to herself, not daring to show it in her mother's presence till the actual arrival of the last day. Then indeed she had lost her head, had sung and danced and made merry, till some trifling accident had provoked her mother's untempered wrath and a sound boxing of ears had quite sobered her enthusiasm. She had fared forth finally upon the adventure with tearful eyes and drooping heart, her mother's frigid kiss of farewell hurting her more poignantly than her drastic punishment of an hour before. For Dinah was intensely sensitive, keenly susceptible to rebuke and coldness, and her warm heart shrank from unkindness with a shrinking that was actual pain.
She knew that the little social world of Perrythorpe looked down upon her mother though not actually refusing to associate with her. Bathurst had married a circus-girl in his green Oxford days; so the story went,--a hard, handsome woman older than himself, and fiercely, intensely ambitious. Lack of funds had prevented her climbing very high, and bitterly she resented her failure. He had never done a day's work in his life, but, unlike his wife, he had plenty of friends. He was well-bred, a good rider, a straight shot, and an entertaining guest. He knew everyone within a radius of twenty miles, and was upon terms of easy intimacy with the de Vignes and many others who received him with pleasure, but very seldom went out of their way to encounter his wife.
Dinah shrewdly suspected that this fact accounted for much of the bitterness of her mother's outlook. Her ambition had apparently died of starvation long since, but her resentment remained. Her hand was against practically all the world, including her daughter, whose fairy-like daintiness and piquancy were so obvious a contrast to the somewhat coarse and flashy beauty that had once been hers. For all that Dinah inherited from her mother was her gipsy darkness. Mrs. Bathurst was not flashy now, and any attempt at personal adornment on Dinah's part was always very sternly repressed. She had met and writhed under the eye of scornful criticism too often, and she distrusted her own taste. She was determined that Dinah should never be subjected to the same humiliation.