"Well!" I said, my voice sounded like reinforced ice. "Who has been gossiping?"
"I heard it," said mother uncomfortably. "I—I should wear that quaint little collar with the quaint spotted border, Pam."
So already the idea was gaining ground, the little rumour was gleaning strength as it floated along. Pam Burbridge was in love with Walter Markham, they wrote; perhaps they were waiting till he came back to break it off. The Burbridge-Cromer engagement had been too sudden to be lasting. Rather hard on Cromer; still, it was pretty obvious where he would console himself, and a far more suitable match in every way. I could hear them.
I looked at the successor chosen by popular opinion when she and her mother came to call for me. She wore a curious sea-green hand-woven linen; instantly I knew why—it was the colour of the water in the White Woman's Cave. She wanted to make another exquisite picture for Cheneston and the subalterns to gaze at.
"Carver is following with the lunch in the dog-cart," she said. "Melon and salmon mayonnaise and pineapple, and cold pheasant and quail, and all sorts of lusciousness. Climb in, Pam. Captain Cromer and the boys are motoring over. Isn't it a ripping morning? I heard from Walter Markham this morning. He says it's the first letter he's been able to write since he got out there. They seem to have had a ghastly time."
"Yes," I said, "they have."
"Oh—of course," Grace said, "you heard. You said so last night, didn't you? I forgot. Do you like Walter Markham?"
"I like him awfully," I said earnestly. I tried to bring all sorts of things into my voice, but I only sounded, as usual, like a guileless but honest schoolgirl.
"So do I," said Grace Gilpin. Her face was half turned away, exquisite tendrils of gold fluffed about her face and hat—there were cherries on her hat, they seemed no redder than the curve of her wonderful mouth.
"If I were a man I should want to eat you," I said suddenly. "Grace—what does it feel like to be able to make any man you meet feel like that?"