"You great goose! if that's news to you, it's news to no one else."
"It is to me." Lucinda sobered. "Daresay I might have guessed if I'd been a wiser woman, but I wasn't, not till just now, when Bel was going away, after a wretched little squabble. Then something, I'm sure I don't know what...."
"I could have told you long ago, sweetest; in fact, I was only awaiting the right moment. I've been sounding Bel out, you may have noticed. There isn't anything one can teach him about flirting, Cindy, all the same there's only one woman in the world Bel can see."
"I'm sure of that," Lucinda agreed ... "just now."
"Cindy!" Fanny insisted, tugging at her hand—"tell me something—"
"Very well, dear. No: I shan't give Bel another chance. I'm not in love with him at all, and I dare not run the risk of falling in love with him again, I daren't risk going mad with happiness, as I should if what once was could be again ... and then having to live through all the misery of breaking with him another time."
"But surely—if he promised faithfully——"
"The promises men make to win us, Fanny, are not the sort that they know how to keep. It's always what they can't have they want most. Give them all they ask today, and tonight they'll lie awake longing for the things they've forsworn. The only woman who could hold Bel to his good behaviour would be one who could keep him guessing. I'm not that woman, I can't pretend, with me it's all or nothing—always!"
"Poor lamb!" Fanny drew her down to sit on the arm of the chair and nestled her frivolous, fair head upon Lucinda's bosom. "You have such desperate troubles, I'm ashamed to tell you my own...."
"Your own, Fanny?"