“That’s all right,” I said, and Mary agreed. Perhaps she was conscious, as I certainly was, of something rather perfunctory in the tone of her assent. She added after a moment:
“It really is quite plain sailing for them, isn’t it?”
“Unless you call Nancy’s father a rock in the way.”
“Nancy isn’t a Victorian schoolgirl. I don’t think they have much to contend with.”
“So much the better.”
“Oh yes,” said Mary, her tone rather enigmatical.
Then she suddenly burst out:
“It’s all so upside down! Christopher and Nancy are dears, both of them, but you know as well as I do that they are neither of them people of tremendous significance. Yet one wishes them well and wants to see it all happily settled. But those other two people—and they are real people, both of them—are outside the law, and there’s no possible happy ending in sight, anywhere, for them. And—one doesn’t know what to wish.”
It was unlike Mary to be vehement. Although she had not raised her voice at all, she had spoken with great intensity.
I put my hand on her arm.