‘I remember I spoke of Ned!
‘You have spoken of him before.’
‘Oh! I know: to you alone. I should like to pluck out my heart and pitch it on the waves, to see whether it would sink or swim. That’s a funny idea, isn’t it! I tell you everything that comes up. What shall I do when I lose you! You always make me feel you’ve a lot of poetry ready-made in you.’
‘We will write. And you will have your husband then.’
‘When I had finished my letter to Ned, I dropped my head on it and behaved like a fool for several minutes. I can’t bear the thought of losing you!’
‘But you don’t lose me,’ said Nesta; ‘there is no ground for your supposing that you will. And your wish not to lose me, binds me to you more closely.’
‘If you knew!’ Mrs. Marsett caught at her slippery tongue, and she carolled: ‘If we all knew everything, we should be wiser, and what a naked lot of people we should be!’
They were crossing the passage of a cavalcade of gentlemen, at the end of the East Cliff. One among them, large and dominant, with a playful voice of brass, cried out:
‘And how do you do, Mrs. Judith Marsett—ha? Beautiful morning?’
Mrs. Marsett’s figure tightened; she rode stonily erect, looked level ahead. Her woman’s red mouth was shut fast on a fighting underlip.