‘Oh, we must be friends just the same,’ she said, more naturally than she had spoken hitherto. ‘But don’t ask us to come and dine just now. All through this winter we shall be very busy, both of us. Indeed, we have decided not to accept any invitations at all.’
‘Then, so long as you let me come here now and then, I must give in. I promise not to trouble you with any more complaining. But how you can live such a life I don’t know. I consider myself more of a reader than women generally are, and I should be mortally offended if anyone called me frivolous; but I must have a good deal of society. Really and truly, I can’t live without it.’
‘No?’ said Amy, with a smile which meant more than Edith could interpret. It seemed slightly condescending.
‘There’s no knowing; perhaps if I had married a literary man—-’ She paused, smiling and musing. ‘But then I haven’t, you see.’ She laughed. ‘Albert is anything but a bookworm, as you know.’
‘You wouldn’t wish him to be.’
‘Oh no! Not a bookworm. To be sure, we suit each other very well indeed. He likes society just as much as I do. It would be the death of him if he didn’t spend three-quarters of every day with lively people.’
‘That’s rather a large portion. But then you count yourself among the lively ones.’
They exchanged looks, and laughed together.
‘Of course you think me rather silly to want to talk so much with silly people,’ Edith went on. ‘But then there’s generally some amusement to be got, you know. I don’t take life quite so seriously as you do. People are people, after all; it’s good fun to see how they live and hear how they talk.’
Amy felt that she was playing a sorry part. She thought of sour grapes, and of the fox who had lost his tail. Worst of all, perhaps Edith suspected the truth. She began to make inquiries about common acquaintances, and fell into an easier current of gossip.