“How wonderfully pretty you look, Jane? I’m simply wild with envy of you.”
It was the feminine convention. Each pecked the other just once below the eye and each wished that the other had never been born. Jane led the way into the library where they sat side by side on the big divan, where they both skillfully maneuvered for an opening for a while, feinting and parrying carte and tierce, advancing, retreating, neither of them willing to risk a thrust.
But at last, the preliminaries having given her the touch of her opponent’s foil, Nina returned.
“You’re really the success of the season, Jane. And you know when a back number like I am admits a thing like that about a débutante, it’s pretty apt to be true. But the thing I can’t understand is why you want to end it all and marry.”
“Marry—whom?”
“Coley.”
“Oh, you have some private source of information on the subject?” Jane asked pleasantly.
“None but your own actions,” Nina replied coolly. “It’s funny, too, because I’ve had an idea—ever since that Dryad story—I’ve feared that you were rather keen on Phil Gallatin.”
Nina was forced to admiration of the carelessness of Jane’s parry.