“I hope he didn’t pretend he paid for my lunch.”
“No,” laughed Cecily. She always had a liking for Fliss when she saw her that her reason protested against. Every one liked to see Fliss around, especially with the new confidence which had replaced the impudence she had had before her marriage. “But he came home and told me that I didn’t go out enough and that he’d had lunch with you. I felt very domestic and badly dressed.”
“And I told Matthew that I had had lunch with Dick and he said, ‘It would do me good to see Cecily once in a while,’ and I felt pert and overdressed and ignorant.”
“There’s your story, Agatha,” said Madeline. “Each of them intriguing the other’s husband. Mismated.”
“Hush,” said Mother Fénelon. “Madeline, even if you are married, I’ll give you a penance if you talk like that.”
“Give me the penance,” begged Fliss, laughingly. “I started it and I’ve never had a penance. I never have had any one to expurgate my conversation.”
“Will you have your tea now?” asked the nun.
They followed her, Fliss and Cecily together. The curious attraction, which was not always friendly, that they felt for each other—had always felt since that day when Cecily met Fliss—and which had been cemented at the birth of Dorothea, was rather stronger than ever, in spite of the way they had drifted into different camps. It was as if each of them possessed something the other lacked or desired.
“It is a beautiful place,” said Fliss. “I’m glad to see it, though it makes me feel, as I say, raw and ignorant.”
“It shouldn’t. It should just make you feel peaceful. That’s what it tries to do.”