“Odd,” said Lucia. “I should have thought perhaps that the death of Miss Amy Lucas—however, what was her message then?”
“She wanted you very much—she said ‘particularly Lucia’—to go to lunch or dine with her on Sunday. Pepino, too, of course.”
“So kind of her, but naturally quite impossible,” said Lucia.
“Oh, but you mustn’t say that,” said Georgie. “She is down for just that day, and she wants to see all her old friends. Particularly Lucia, you know. In fact she asked me to get up two little parties for her at lunch and dinner. So, of course, I came to see you first, to know which you would prefer.”
“A party!” she said. “How do you think I could?”
“But it wouldn’t be that sort of party,” said Georgie. “Just a few of your friends. You and Pepino will have seen nobody to-night and all to-morrow. He will have told you everything by Sunday. And so bad to sit brooding.”
The moment Lucia had said it was quite impossible she had been longing for Georgie to urge her, and had indeed been prepared to encourage him to urge her if he didn’t do so of his own accord. His last words had given her an admirable opening.
“I wonder!” she said. “Perhaps Pepino might feel inclined to go, if there really was no party. It doesn’t do to brood: you are right, I mustn’t let him brood. Selfish of me not to think of that. Who would there be, Georgie?”
“That’s really for you to settle,” he said.