Mrs. Emsworth kissed her again.
'That is nice too,' she said. 'But what makes you?'
'I don't know. I think it was seeing you in that horrid play last night. You were like a sunbeam in—in a cesspool. But why do that sort of thing?'
Mrs. Emsworth shrugged her shoulders.
'Because people are beasts, my dear,' she said—'because they like that sort of thing. And one has to live.'
Amelie thought a moment, with her face growing grave.
'Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry,' she said.
A sudden impatience and ungovernable irritation filled Dorothy. She felt as if she was being hauled back to her ordinary life, when she was so happy in the sweetness of the early morning hour. Why did this stupid, gawky girl come and speak to her like this? But with an effort at self-control stronger than she usually bothered herself to make, she mastered it.
'Oh, never mind, never mind,' she said. 'Walk with me a little further, and let me look at you because you are beautiful, and the trees because they are beautiful, and the grass and the sky. What a heavenly moment! Do not let us waste it. Look, the lawns are empty, where yesterday they were full with all sorts of silly and wicked people. Is that an insult to your mother's guests? I think it is. Anyhow, I was one of the silly, wicked people. But now I am not silly or wicked; I am very good, and very innocent, and I want to take everything into my arms and stroke it. My God! what a beautiful world! I am so glad I did not die in the night.'
Amelie laughed. This mood found in her a ready response.