“It’s coming to the crisis, you see,” she said. “Mr. Osborne’s call on mother is of a formal nature. He is going to ask permission for Claude to pay his addresses to me. He will use those very words, unless mother says ‘yes’ before he gets so far. And then I shall have to make up my mind. At least I’m not sure that I shall; I believe it’s made up already. And yet I can’t be sure. May, I feel just like a silly sentimental girl in an impossible feuilleton. He thrills me, isn’t it awful? But he does. Thrills! I don’t believe any boy was ever so good-looking. And then suddenly in the middle of my thrill, it all stops with a jerk, just because he says that somebody is a very ‘handsome lady.’ Why shouldn’t he say ‘handsome lady’? He said he thought mother was such a handsome lady, and I nearly groaned out loud. And then I looked at him again or something, and I didn’t care what he said. And he’s nice too. I know he’s nice, and he’s got excellent manners, and always gets up when a lady, handsome or not, comes into the room, instead of lounging in his chair as Austell does and all other young men nowadays except a few like Claude who aren’t exactly our sort. And he’s kind and he’s good. Am I in love with him? For heaven’s sake, tell me.”
Dora paused a moment and then took a cigarette from a box that stood on the mantelpiece, and lit it. She never smoked cigarettes; she only lit them, and the mere fact that she lit one was indicative of extreme absorption in something else.
“You’re engaged, May,” she said, “so you ought to know. Else what is the use of your being engaged. What do you feel when that angel Harry comes into the room?”
May could answer that quite easily.
“Oh, I feel as if it was me coming into the room,” she said. “I feel as if I am not in the room, since you put it like that, unless he is.”
The conversation had been flippant enough up till this moment, though, as a matter of fact, Dora, being inconsequential by nature, often gave the note of flippancy, when she was in earnest. Both of the girls, in any case, were quite serious now. And out of the depth of her twenty years’ wisdom, May proceeded to draw a bucket full for Dora, who was only nineteen.
“Oh, I expect you are in love,” she said. “At least I expect you are feeling as if you were. I understand perfectly about the thrill, though it sounds so dreadfully Family Herald when it is said. But one does thrill. I believe that thrill is a pretty good guide. I don’t usually thrill, in fact I never had thrilled till I saw Harry. But I always thrill at him. I suppose all girls feel the same when they fall in love. I suppose people on bank holidays thrill when they change hats, or eat winkles. We are all common then. At least you may call it common if you choose. I don’t see why you should. It’s IT.”
“You haven’t told me about me,” remarked Dora.
May Thurston shifted her position slightly. It was not done with any idea of manœuvre. She was the least dramatic of girls, and she only shifted because she felt a little uncomfortable. It was new to her also to take the lead. Dora usually strode ahead.
“I can’t advise you about things of that sort,” she said. “I’m old-fashioned, you see——”