"But Cindy!" Fanny's wide eyes were a child's for candour—"that was before I knew there was any reason ... Mr. Nolan called up about nine, said he wanted to talk to Harry; and when I told him Harry was away on business (that was a lie—tell you presently) he guessed that Harry had come here to see you, and said he'd try to get in touch with him here. So I told him I believed you were dining out with Lynn; we'd all been invited, but Harry found he couldn't make it, at the last moment, so we begged off. That's how it happened."
"I fancied it was something like that," Lucinda commented, unsuspiciously enough but in a thoughtful tone open to misconstruction by an inquiet conscience.
"But surely you don't doubt my word, Cindy!"
"Why should I, dear?" Lucinda asked, smiling; and pausing in her restless, aimless circling of the room she dropped an affectionate hand on Fanny's shoulder. "What a silly notion!"
Fanny cuddled the hand to her cheek. "Forgive me, dear: I don't know why I said that. I suppose it's because I'm as much upset about my own affairs as you are about yours, Cindy—most of all about this shocking business, of course, and so sorry for you, dear——"
"Don't be sorry for me." Lucinda's fingers tightened on Fanny's. "Be glad I've learned a good lesson and had a fortunate escape. I ought to be glad the hurt's no worse...."
"Poor darling! you were fearfully fond of Lynn, weren't you?"
"Was I? I've been wondering. In love with Lynn, or just in love with Love: which? I'm afraid the shock of it all is too new for me to be sure as yet, but.... Oh, I'm sorry for Lynn, of course! but only as one would be for any acquaintance who was in pain and at death's door. But in the light of what I know now, of how Lynn lied to me, and how shamefully he treated that poor creature he married, it seems impossible I could ever have been in love, actually in love with such a man.... In love with being loved, yes, I'm afraid I shall never get better of that weakness; and so absurdly conscious that Lynn Summerlad, the great lover, had chosen me, I never stopped to consider him in comparison with other men. But I don't think I was in love with Lynn.... Or am I sincere? is what I'm saying just sophistry to salve my poor, sore vanity?"
She laughed consciously, then in swift variation of mood added a pensive, wistful note: "Fanny: Bel loves me...."
The countenance turned up to hers was quick with mirth: Fanny started to speak, gurgled rapturously, and broke down in laughter so infectious that Lucinda could not but respond, if ruefully.