Fanny wanted to ask more questions but, heeding the counsel of discretion, contented herself with a little private sigh. Going on her tone, Lucinda quite meant what she had just said. Good news for Harry, whose plans would be seriously embarrassed if there were any real reason to fear the defection of Lucinda through reconciliation with her husband. For of course, if she took Druce on again, it would mean an end to the still young history of Linda Lee: Druce never would consent to let his wife continue in the picture business.
"All the same, if you don't mind, I think I'll practise on Bellamy."
"Oh, I don't mind. But Harry might."
"Oh, Harry!" Fanny had a laugh of light scorn. "For all Harry cares——!"
But Lucinda was inattentive; she had lapsed swiftly into an abstraction which had little or nothing to do with the unseasonable reappearance of Bellamy or the prospect of a wearing time with him before he could be finally discouraged. Whatever proposals Bel might wish to make, the answer to them all stood immutably decreed by Lucinda's heart.
It was not with matters of such certainty that she was concerned, but with the problematical issue of the Summerlad affair, an issue whose imminence was to be measured now by hours. Nothing that had happened since had served to erase the impression of that first kiss, nothing conceivable could seem half so momentous. The presence of the camera had meant nothing, they had kissed in earnest; mute, her lips had confessed too much. It remained only to be determined whether or not Summerlad had understood their message. If he had, Lucinda well knew, she was a lost woman.
She was possessed with a species of rapturous alarm....
XXVIII
In sequel Lucinda knew two days made up of emotions singularly stratified. This notwithstanding the fact (of which she needed to remind herself with provoking frequency) that she had put Bel out of her life for good and all, he was less than nothing to her now and, in the simple nature of things, seeing she was pledged to another, never could be more—more, at least, than the trial his pertinacity was rendering him at present.