“He didn’t ask me,” said Nina.
“But surely he said he’d loved you since the first moment he saw you?”
Nina had to admit it.
“Then you see I wasn’t such a vulgar little donkey after all.”
“Yes, you were. You hadn’t any business even to think such things, much less say them. Why, even I didn’t dare to think it for—oh—for ever so long. But I’ll forgive it—and if it’s good it shall be a pretty little bridesmaid, it shall.”
“When is it to be?” asked Molly, still adrift in a sea of wonder.
“Oh, quite soon, he says. He says we’re only wasting time by waiting. You see we’re both alone.”
But Molly, looking wistfully at her friend’s transfigured face, perceived sadly that it was she who was alone, not they.
And the thought of the red-haired Pierrot with whom she had danced nine times at the Students’ Fancy Dress dance, an indiscretion hitherto her dearest memory, now offered no solid consolation.
Nina went away, singing softly under her breath. Molly sighed and followed slowly.