Page:An American Girl in India.djvu/135

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THREE OLD MAIDS
125

it was bitterly cold, and I positively shivered under a good thick rug, and thought with regret even of the heat of Bombay station. It made me feel particularly annoyed with Lord Hendley too. Is there anything more annoying than a man who tells you something that you don't believe at the time but that comes true afterwards? He had told me that it would be cold, and I had only smiled. Now it would have been Lord Hendley's turn to smile if he could have seen me huddled up in a cotton night-dress, seeking all the warmth that a sheet and a rug could give. Of course, he would have been much too well-bred to have said 'I told you so,' but I don't think even he could have helped looking it. And if there is one thing that drives a woman wild it's the knowledge that she's given a man the chance of saying, 'I told you so,' even if he doesn't say it.

I felt warmer after Ermyntrude had brought me some tea. Ermyntrude looked worn and tired but very faithful, with the grim resigned sort of look about the corners of her mouth that I knew so well. I know better than to start a conversation when Ermyntrude looks like that, so I took my tea with a grateful word and smile, and let her retire again to the unknown terrors of the second-class. Then I thought it time to begin to make friends with the three old ladies, who had just begun to get up. I made no reference at all to the previous night, and we were soon on the most amiable terms. They bore no resentment evidently for the fright I had given them, and only seemed too anxious to