“But I knew nothing of all that at the time. To me they seemed just a little sulky to one another, and to me, too. Otherwise they ignored what had happened, made nothing of it, never referred to it in any way. I was most frightfully hurt and—and let down. To me it had been a great beginning—of something, though I didn’t know of what. I couldn’t understand how Arsenio could treat it as nothing—that he shouldn’t apologize and abase himself if he’d meant nothing serious, that he shouldn’t speak to me again if he really cared for me. I felt utterly bewildered. Only I had a strange feeling that somehow, in some way, Arsenio had acquired a right over me by kissing my lips. Of that feeling I never got rid.”
From a frown she broke into a smile again, as she went on. “It was a miserable week—till we went. Both the boys avoided me whenever they could. Both have told me why since, but I don’t believe that either of them told me the truth. Arsenio said it was because he couldn’t trust himself not to make love to me, and he had practically promised that he wouldn’t. I think it was because he thought I would expect to be made love to (I did!), and he didn’t want to; he wasn’t in love with me then; besides he was afraid of Waldo. Waldo said it was because he was ashamed of himself. I daresay he was ashamed, but it was much more because he was in love with me, but was too proud to seem to compete with Arsenio. Whatever the reasons, the result was—triumph for Nina! She was invited over every day and all day. Both of them tried to keep with her—in order to avoid me. I wasn’t exactly jealous, because I knew that they really wanted to be with me—but for the complications. But I was exasperated to see that she thought—as, of course, she must—that she had cut me out. How her manner changed! Before this she had adored me—as younger girls do older ones sometimes; ‘Darling Lucinda!’ and so on! I’d noticed her trying to imitate me, and she used to ask where I got such pretty frocks. Now she patronized me, told me how I must wish I had a nice home (she knew I hadn’t) like Cragsfoot or Briarmount, and said what a pity it was my mother couldn’t give me more chances of riding, so that I could improve! She did ride much better than I—which made it worse.”
Here I looked at Lucinda, asking leave to laugh. She gave it in her own low-murmuring laughter at herself. “So it ended. We went away, and I was very glad when we did. I went away without either Arsenio or Waldo having said to me a single word that mattered.”
“I must have been very dull to have noticed nothing—except just the quarrel; well, the quarrel itself, and how you looked while it was going on—till you were sent to bed.”
“How did I look?”
“Just as you did when I saw you in the taxi at the corner by Marlborough House.”
“I’m very glad I didn’t see you! You’d have brought back what I’d managed to put out of my mind. As though I could put it out of my life!”
Suddenly and abruptly she pushed her chair back from the table. “Aren’t we staying here a frightfully long time? That waiter’s staring at us.”
“But surely I haven’t heard all the story yet?”