“I have not been trying,” I said—“I will confess it—I have not been trying to think kindly of you.”
“I know it, Dumps,” she said gravely, and she looked round at me.
“And I have been advising the boys not to show you any affection.”
“I know it, Dumps,” she said again.
“And—and I returned those clothes that you gave me when I was at Hedgerow House.”
“You did. Why did you do it?”
“If, perhaps,” I said slowly—“I don’t know, but perhaps if you had told me the truth then, that you were not being so awfully kind just because I was a lonely little girl, but because you were going to marry my father, I might have stood it better, and I might have acted differently; but you deceived me. I thought you were a very kind, middle-aged, rather fat lady, and I liked you just awfully; but when you deceived me—”
“Don’t say any more,” she remarked hastily. “It was not my wish—I felt all along that—”
But then, with a great effort, she resumed her usual manner.
“I see I have not won you yet,” she said. “But we must go on being friends outwardly, and perhaps—you have been confirmed, have you not?”