She was silent for a long time, weighing her answer. Was it best to be honest with him?
“I confess that it has something to do with it,” she admitted. Lydia could not be anything but truthful.
“I thought so. It's—it's a rotten shame, Lyddy. That's why I want to talk to her. I want to reason with her. It's all so perfectly silly, this misunderstanding. You've just got to go on as you were before, Lyddy—just as if it hadn't happened. It———”
“I shall complete the work for your father, Freddy,” she said quietly. “Two or three days more will see the end. After that neither my services nor my presence will be required over there.”
“You don't mean to say——” he began, unbelievingly.
“It isn't likely I'd go there for pleasure, is it?” she interrupted dryly.
“But think of the old times, the———”
“I can think of them just as well here as anywhere else. No; I shan't annoy Mrs Brood, Freddy.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say more, but she thought better of it.
“They're going abroad soon,” he ventured. “At least, that's father's plan. Yvonne isn't so keen about it. She calls this being abroad, you know. Besides,” he hurried on in his eagerness to excuse Yvonne, “she's tremendously fond of you.”
Lydia was wise. “I would give a great deal to be able to really believe so, Freddy. I—I could be very fond of her.”