"He was always kind and civil to you, Margaret," Joanna interrupted restrainingly. Jealousy folded its beating wings, betaking itself to most unaccustomed repose.
"Civil and kind, I dare say. But—well, of course there are signs one can't mistake, unless one blinds oneself wilfully to their meaning."
She tossed her head, her eyes hard and bright. Joanna's expression meanwhile became increasingly ecstatic.
"Yes, there are signs one cannot mistake—signs which it would be weak and faithless to mistake," she whispered.
"I don't deny I felt rather enraged," Margaret continued, too busy with her own vexation to remark the other's singular aspect. "I could have been very much upset about it all if I had let myself go."
"I am sorry," Joanna murmured, touched by unexpected pity. "Indeed, Margaret, I am sorry."
"Oh, you weren't to blame in any way, Nannie. And, you see, I didn't let myself go. I just turned my attention to Challoner. There is nothing ambiguous about his admiration. And now"—she glanced curiously at her sister—"now," she continued, "as things have turned out, I'm most uncommonly glad I didn't allow myself to get into a state of mind about Adrian."
"As things have turned out?—I understand. I am pleased you do not blame me, Margaret. Yes, as things have turned out!" Joanna repeated excitedly.
For here, as she saw it, was the hour of her triumph, of assured and splendid victory. The room seemed too small to hold her rapture. Hardly aware of that which she did, she brushed past her sister—still standing, fan in hand, beside the chair at the window—and went out on to the balcony.
She required to be alone, so as to savor to the full the heady sweetness of her own emotion. She wanted to forget every one, everything, save that only. She wanted to abandon herself without reserve to the thought of Adrian Savage; to gloat over every incident of her intercourse with him, and project her imagination onward to the closer, the continuous and exclusive intercourse of the future. For had not Margaret's confession—the more persuasive because reluctantly made—amounted to an admission that Adrian's affection belonged to her, and to her only? Did it not supply reasonable confirmation of her sorely tried faith in him, and ratify all her hopes by setting the seal of witness upon the fact of his love for her?