"Mind, darling! I'll simply fly into my clothes, be there in no time at all."
The meditative expression with which Lucinda put the telephone aside drew from Bellamy the direct question: What had Fanny said?
"It wasn't what she said, it was the funny, embarrassed way she said it. As a general thing, Fanny's as transparently candid as—as a plate of glass."
Bellamy made a doubting mouth. "You're pretty thick, you two," he supposed—"you tell her everything?"
Irritation in a gust shook Lucinda till her voice shook in sympathy.
"Really, Bel! you seem fairly possessed by desire to believe my life out here full of things an honest woman would want to hide."
"No," Bellamy dissented slowly. "But I do seriously believe—in fact, know—you haven't always been altogether discreet, you've done things here, without a moment's thought, you'd have hesitated a long time before committing yourself to at home."
"You forget this is now my home. What Fifth Avenue holds inconvenable isn't anything to bother about on Sunset Boulevard."
"Well ... if life has taught me anything, Linda, it is that it never does to trust too much to the good will of one's friends. We're all too exclusively creatures of selfishness: self always comes before the claims others may have or impose on us. It pleases us no end to believe our friends so devoted that they'd put our interests before their own; but when the test comes, as a general thing, we find out we've been self-deluded."
"How funny, Bel: you philosophizing!"