“Dynechester is Christina’s home, Polly,” she said:
But Polly wore a defiant air.
“What has that to do with us? Christina may live in Dynechester, but we need not trouble ourselves about her in the very least. I mean henceforward,” Polly added, with a great deal more firmness than was sincere. “I mean, my lovee, dear, to treat people just as they treat me, and as Christina forgets us, so we must forget her.”
It was only on rare occasions that the names of either Christina or Winnie were mentioned between them.
It seemed strange enough to Polly sometimes to look back and realize in how short a time her two sisters had drifted out of her life.
She had a thrill of pity for herself in these moments—pity for all those years of wasted love and admiration she had lavished on Christina. That Winnie would be true to her own peculiar selfishness Polly had always vaguely felt; but the way in which Winnie had demonstrated this finally had exceeded all she had imagined on the subject.
It was in truth a hard task for Polly’s virile loyalty to survey her sister’s callousness with any great degree of philosophy.
She made a brave show to her mother of indifference, but the wounds that both Christina and Winnie had made were too deep to be healed quickly.
Nevertheless, though there would be pain both to her mother and herself in this suggested visit to Dynechester, Polly determined they would go when they were invited.
“I shall believe in the invitation when it comes,” she said, with emphasis, as two days passed, and no letter reached them from Grace. “I suppose Mr. Ambleton thought he was in duty bound to say that his sister would like to see us. It was quite necessary for him to invent something just to please us, wasn’t it?”