Violet’s heart was sinking, sinking, but she contrived to keep up the farce. “Not a ghost of an idea.”
“Take three guesses.”
But Violet only took one. “You don’t mean to say, you....”
All pretence was at an end. Bill’s sister spoke with a slow reproachfulness that caused Mame to feel decidedly uncomfortable. But she determined to put the best face she could on the matter. “Why not?” she laughed. “Do you blame me?”
“Blame you!” The note in the disciplined voice sounded odd. Violet’s face and tone hardened in a way that Mame found rather alarming. “What you really deserve is a thorough good beating.”
For one vital moment it looked as if this really was going to be a case of teeth and claws. But of a sudden Violet took herself strongly in hand.
Never in her life had it been so difficult for Violet to wear the mask of indifference. She would have liked to have killed this marauder. But in her heart she knew that she herself was almost wholly responsible for a tragic situation. She had been properly punished for the levity of her approach to certain conventions. How could she have been paid out better for playing the fool?
However, this was not a moment for self-castigation. She must act. The matter was so horribly serious that it hardly bore thinking about. All the tact, all the diplomacy she could muster had now to be brought into play.
A trying pause threatened to intensify the awkwardness of things. And then said Violet in a tone that would keep hardening in spite of herself: “Before you mention this to anyone, I hope you will see my mother. Will you promise that?”
Mame did not answer at once. Her instinct was to ask Bill. Perhaps Violet may have guessed as much. For she was not to be put off. She made her demand again and with an urgency quite new in Mame’s experience of her. This was a new Violet altogether.