Here I thought grimly of Miss Robinson’s version: “My dears, the little Trant makes out she’s madly in love with him!” All this about two people who, as far as I can make out, have only one thing in common—both being absolutely falling-in-love-proof!
Poor, well-meaning, warm-hearted Cicely was still effusing; eager to make up for her first suspicion that I wasn’t engaged for the only right reason.
“I ought to have seen! Of course! It was he who gave you this extra work about a fortnight ago?”
“Exactly!” (Extra work with a vengeance! More than I’ve bargained for!)
—“And that we were so thankful for, just when I lost my own job and was ill, and there were all those extra things to get.... It was your ‘rise’ that got them all, I knew. Only I didn’t know ... this other. It began then, I suppose, Tots?”
“Yes, it began then.”
“How romantic! Well! And I did notice that you’ve been absent-minded and not saying much these last few days, and I ought to have known why it was. Especially yesterday. Did HE take you out to lunch again to-day? Oh, doesn’t it make the whole world different for you?”
“It makes the menu jolly different, anyhow,” I admitted.
“Ah, yes; you may pretend to be as flippant as you like about it, but I know that’s ‘all put on’ to hide what you’re really feeling!” declared Cicely.
Such a convenient conviction! I made up my mind, then and there, that this was just the line I should adopt with my chum. And laughing merrily for her benefit, I fled to my own little room.