'Of course you have. You're trying to appear just as you were when we first met, but you can't do it. Even if I hadn't noticed the difference in you, I should have known that no one could live through these times and remain the same.'
'Why not? Haven't you?'
He laughed grimly, and his head sank back on the pillows. 'I want to know all about you, Elise,' he repeated dully.
'Very well.' She smoothed her skirt with her hands, and folded them
Quakeress-fashion.
'As you know, I once had a flat in Park Walk—which I shared with various and variegated female patriots, also engaged in guiding the destinies of motor-cars. Edna was the first one to follow Marian, after she and I quarrelled; but Edna couldn't break herself of the habit of wandering into the Ritz for luncheon every second day with only a shilling in her pocket.'
'But I don't see how'——
'You poor innocent! Some one always paid—don't worry. So we parted company on that issue, and I asked Mabel to take Edna's place. Mabel was frightfully nice, but took to opium cigarettes, and then to heroin. She disappeared one night, and never came back. Poor girl! Her going made room for Lily, who read the very nicest modern novels, and always cried through the love scenes. I wish you could have seen her sitting up in bed reading a book, eating chocolates, and sobbing like a crocodile. Lily had only one weakness—marrying Flying Corps officers. It was really the army's fault giving two of her husbands leave at the same time.'
Selwyn frowned, 'What a dreadful experience!' he said.
'Oh, I don't know.' She gave a little shrug of her shoulders, but the spirit of badinage had vanished both from her face and from her voice. 'It didn't take long to lose most of one's illusions. It is one thing to meet people as Lord Durwent's daughter, and quite another as a free-lance ambulance-driver. I've seen what people really are since I've been on my own, and I'm sick of the whole thing.'
'You don't mean that, Elise?'