The blonde lady nodded.
“Of course. Nita’s always nearly right. The influence—the adventures—the mariage de convenance—she’s got it all so pat—and the man too. She knows well enough; yet she fights against it. She won’t have it. I wonder why. ‘Very old friends’ I suppose.” She laughed again. “But of course it was Kent. Can’t you see that’s why Nita hates her? What a Life it will be! I just long for it to come out. Nita’s a comedy.”
“A tragedy.”
“Nita? My dear Lila! What do you mean?”
“I’m only quoting,” said Miss Howe. And then—“But when she isn’t actually annoying me I think I agree.”
“Who said it?” said the Baxter girl inquisitively.
“Madala. It’s the only thing I’ve ever heard her say of Anita. She never discussed Anita. Now of Kent she would talk by the hour. Which proves to me, you know, that the affair with him didn’t go very deep. Nita quoted that description of Kent just now, but only so far as it served her. She carefully forgot how it goes on. Here, where is it? Ah——
He brooded like a lover over his colour-box, and as she watched him her thoughts flew to her own small brothers at home. Geoff with his steam-engine, Jimmy sorting stamps—there, there was to be found the same ruthlessness of absorption, achieving dignity by its sheer intensity. She smiled over him and them.
“Keep your face still,” he ordered.
She obeyed instantly, flushing; and as she did so she thought to herself—‘I could be afraid of that man,’ but a moment afterwards—‘He is like a small boy.’