But Marcella went to bed hating herself, and Aldous, after his solitary drive home, sat up long and late, feverishly pacing and thinking.
* * * * * Then next evening how differently things fell! Marcella, having spent the afternoon at the Court, hearing all the final arrangements for the ball, and bearing with Miss Raeburn in a way which astonished herself, came home full of a sense of duty done, and announced to her mother that she was going to Mr.Wharton's meeting in the Baptist chapel that evening.
"Unnecessary, don't you think ?" said Mrs.Boyce, lifting her eyebrows.
"However, if you go, I shall go with you." Most mothers, dealing with a girl of twenty-one, under the circumstances, would have said, "I had rather you stayed at home." Mrs.
Boyce never employed locutions of this kind.

She recognised with perfect calmness that Marcella's bringing up, and especially her independent years in London, had made it impossible.
Marcella fidgeted.
"I don't know why you should, mamma.

Papa will be sure to want you.

Of course, I shall take Deacon." "Please order dinner a quarter of an hour earlier, and tell Deacon to bring down my walking things to the hall," was all Mrs.Boyce said in answer.
Marcella walked upstairs with her head very stiff.

So her mother, and Miss Raeburn too, thought it necessary to keep watch on her.