“No,” answered Joan. “I’m a Lancashire lass.”
“Curious,” said the girl, “so am I. My father’s a mill manager near Bolton. You weren’t educated there?”
“No,” Joan admitted. “I went to Rodean at Brighton when I was ten years old, and so escaped it. Nor were you,” she added with a smile, “judging from your accent.”
“No,” answered the other, “I was at Hastings—Miss Gwyn’s. Funny how we seem to have always been near to one another. Dad wanted me to be a doctor. But I’d always been mad about art.”
Joan had taken a liking to the girl. It was a spiritual, vivacious face with frank eyes and a firm mouth; and the voice was low and strong.
“Tell me,” she said, “what interfered with it?” Unconsciously she was leaning forward, her chin supported by her hands. Their faces were very near to one another.
The girl looked up. She did not answer for a moment. There came a hardening of the mouth before she spoke.
“A baby,” she said. “Oh, it was my own fault,” she continued. “I wanted it. It was all the talk at the time. You don’t remember. Our right to children. No woman complete without one. Maternity, woman’s kingdom. All that sort of thing. As if the storks brought them. Don’t suppose it made any real difference; but it just helped me to pretend that it was something pretty and high-class. ‘Overmastering passion’ used to be the explanation, before that. I guess it’s all much of a muchness: just natural instinct.”
The restaurant had been steadily emptying. Monsieur Gustav and his ample-bosomed wife were seated at a distant table, eating their own dinner.
“Why couldn’t you have married?” asked Joan.