“You seem to be thinking more of Arthur than of me. Are you?”
“And what if I am? It’s time somebody did think for him; apparently the poor fellow can’t think straight for himself.”
“Will you swear solemnly, as you tried to make me swear, that Arthur is nothing to you? You had the cheek to tell me that you could, if you tried, take him from me. It looks as if you had tried. And that, of course, would account for your extraordinary behaviour. Now . . . swear!”
Silence.
To be “hoist with one’s own petard” is an experience that few escape. To accept such hoisting without whimpering is difficult. Hence Miss Tiddle’s silence. Cicely had put to her a question which as yet she had not put to herself. It fell, devastatingly, into the well where Truth hides herself from a mendacious world.
“If you say nothing I shall think what I please.”
Tiddy pulled herself together.
“You are forcing me to be honest, not with you, but with myself. I have not tried to take Arthur from you.”
“Could he”—Cicely’s voice was relentless—“could he, if he were free, be more to you than a friend?”
Tiddy squirmed.