“Please don’t imagine that I object to your flirting with any one you like,” said Frances with exasperating calm. “If you have a taste for that sort of thing it is your own business.”
Pinckney flushed.
“I don’t know if you want to quarrel with me,” said he, “if you do, say so at once.”
“Not a bit,” she replied, “you know I never quarrel with any one, it’s bad form for one thing and it is waste of energy for another.”
A man came up to claim her for the next dance and she went off with him, leaving Pinckney upset and astonished at her manner and conduct.
It was their first quarrel, the first result of their engagement. Frances had seemed all laziness and honey up to this; like many another woman she began to show her real nature now that Pinckney was secured.
But it was not an ordinary lovers’ quarrel; her anger had less to do with Richard Pinckney than with Phyl. Her hatred of Phyl, big as a baobab tree, covered with its shadow Vernons, Miss Pinckney, and Richard.
He was part of the business of her dethronement.
Richard wandered off to where Maria Pinckney was seated watching the dancers.
“Why aren’t you dancing?” asked she.