"They will if you manage things properly. It needn't be Verena. I expect Verena, for all she is so soft and fair, is a tough nut to crack; but you can bring Briar and Patty. My father will be quite satisfied if three of you are present. The fact is, he is awfully hurt at the thought of your all thinking yourselves too good for us. He says that the Dales and the Kings were always friends. My father is a dear old man, but he has his cranks, and he has made up his mind that come you must, or he'll make mischief. It won't be only me; it will be my father as well. He will appear at The Dales, and if I go straight to Miss Tredgold, he will go straight to Mr. Dale. Now, what do you think of that? I am determined to have you for reasons of my own, and I shall poke up my father to do no end of mischief if you don't appear. Now don't be a goose. Get up a little dash of courage and a little dash of your old spirit and everything will be as straight as possible."
Pauline stood quite still. Nancy danced in front of her. Nancy's face was almost malicious in its glee. Pauline looked at it as a child will look when despair clutches at her heart.
"I didn't know--I couldn't guess--that you were like that," she said in a sort of whisper.
"Couldn't you, dear little duckledoms? Well, you do know it now; and you know also how to act. Don't you see by the lines round my mouth and the expression in my eyes that I can be hard as hard when I please? I am going to be very hard now. My honor is involved in this. I promised that you would be there. There are presents being bought for you. Come you must; come you shall."
Pauline stood quite silent; then she flung her arms to her sides and faced her tormentor.
"There was a time," she said slowly, "when I loved you, Nancy. But I don't love you now. By-and-by, perhaps, you will be sorry that you have lost my love, for I think--yes, I think it is the sort that doesn't come back. I don't love you to-night because you are cruel, because you have already got me into a scrape, and you want to push me into a yet deeper one. I am not the sort of girl you think me. However grand and stately and like a lady Aunt Sophia is--and compared to you and me, Nancy, she is very stately and very grand and very noble--I would not give you up. Aunt Sophy is a lady with a great brave heart, and her ideas are up-in-the-air ideas, and she doesn't know anything about mean and low and vulgar things. I'd have clung to you, Nancy, and always owned you as my friend, even if Aunt Sophy had taken me into good society. Yes, I'd have stuck to you whatever happened; but now"--Pauline pressed her hand to her heart--"everything is altered. You are cruel, and I don't love you any more. But I am in such trouble, and so completely in despair, that I will come to the picnic; and if I can bring two of the girls, I will. There is nothing more to say. You may expect us at eleven o'clock on Wednesday night."