“I would,” replied Kathryn still cheerful. “You can apologize better when you’re dry.”
He slid through the palms like a snake and the two girls stood and gazed at each other. Robin’s flame had died down and her face had settled itself into a sort of hardness. Kathryn did not know that she herself looked at her as the Duchess might have looked at another girl in the quite different days of her youth.
“I’ll tell you something now he’s gone,” she said. “I have been kissed myself and so have other girls I know. Boys like George don’t really matter, though of course it’s bad manners. But who has got good manners? Things rush so that there’s scarcely time for manners at all. When an older man makes a snatch at you it’s sometimes detestable. But to push him into the fountain was a good idea,” and she laughed again.
“I didn’t push him in.”
“I wish you had,” with a gleeful mischief. The next moment, however, the hint of a worried frown showed itself on her forehead. “You see,” she said protestingly, “you are so frightfully pretty.”
“I’d rather be a leper,” Robin shot forth.
But Kathryn did not of course understand.
“What nonsense!” she answered. “What utter rubbish! You know you wouldn’t. Come back to the ball room. I came here because my mother was asking for George.”
She turned to lead the way through the banked flowers and as she did so added something.
“By the way, somebody important has been assassinated in one of the Balkan countries. They are always assassinating people. They like it. Lord Coombe has just come in and is talking it over with grandmamma. I can see they are quite excited in their quiet way.”