“When you put him off by—Deb, you—you’re not bluffing? you’ve cared all this while?”
“Yes.... And now you tell me he’s back, I wonder if I could put things right again—I do wonder....”
“But you told me at the time that you were laughing, pulling his leg....” Richard hardly dared believe in this secret of his sister’s which synchronized so marvellously with his own petition.
She stamped a petulant foot at him. “I was laughing—because I was too ashamed to own up that I’d hurt myself by teasing him with that idiot lie of mine about Cliffe. I thought you would have guessed—I thought you had guessed, when you first lugged in Samson’s name, and were only pretending that bit about Uncle Otto and yourself and influence, for—for cover; to cover me. I thought it was so nice of you. Richard”—she walked straight up to him, and put her arms round his neck, looking steadily at his eyes, those sombre, tortured eyes which were beginning already to lighten hopefully and lose some of their strain—“Richard, own up; it was that, wasn’t it?”
Play-acting. But she had done it so long and inconsequently and for no one’s sake at all, surely now she was justified in play-acting to the tip of her powers, at Richard, and for Richard’s sake....
“Wasn’t it?”
“No. No, Deb. It was sheer selfishness. But if you can ... if you honestly do love him....”