She hesitated and a bit lamely concluded:
“It is horrible to be in such a place.”
“And worse to be nowhere at all,” Violet shot at her. In firing she had sat up. Now, lolling back on the cushions, she enigmatically resumed: “You may be right though. I daresay it is dreadful to be in prison. I daresay it is even worse than you think.”
Enigmatic still, she smiled. With another shot, with two at most, Leilah, she told herself, would be routed.
“It is as though I were in a vortex,” the latter was saying. “It is as though I were being torn from places where I do not wish to be to others I may not like. But can one argue with a vortex? It is idle even to struggle. Whether you will or you won’t, you have to let yourself go.”
Lightly, in her most worldly manner, Violet laughed.
“Never in the world! A woman should never let herself go—except in an aeroplane. At a pinch a four-in-hand might do, but——”
At the moment the lady was thoroughly en veine and, sure of victory, might have bantered on, but this, Aurelia, ushered by Parker, prevented.
Sharply Violet threw at her: “Where have you been?”