"I was a brute beast to him, my darling."
"Oh, I shan't be a brute beast to Seymour," said Nadine. "Besides, I don't suppose you were. You didn't know: wasn't that all?"
Dodo wiped the mist from her eyes.
"No, that wasn't nearly all. But be tender with it, and pray, oh, my dear, pray, that you may catch that—that 'noble fever.' Who calls it that? It is so true. And Hughie? I never saw him last night."
Nadine made a little gesture of despair.
"Ah, dear Hughie," she said. "That is not very happy. That is so largely why I wanted to marry Seymour quickly, in January instead of later, so that it may be done, and Hughie will not fret any more. I hate seeing him suffer, and I can't marry him. It would not be fair: it would be cheating him, as I told him before."
"But you are not cheating Seymour?" asked Dodo.
"Not in the same way. He is not simple, like Hugh. Hugh has only one thought: Seymour has plenty of others. He has such a mind: it is subtle and swift like a woman's. Hughie has the mind of a great retriever dog, and the eyes of one. There is all the difference in the world between them. Seymour knows what he is in for, and still wants it. Hugh thinks he knows, but he doesn't. I understand Hugh so well: I know I am right. And I would have given anything to be able to be in love with him. It was a pity!"
There was something here that Dodo had not known and there was a dangerous sound about it.
"Do you mean you wish you were in love with him?" she asked.