"You did not dance at all well to-night, honey," Fanny added her meed of blame as the two of them were undressing for the night. "But there, I know what is wrong with you. You are in love, bless your heart, and so is he. Never took his eyes off you while you were dancing, my dear—I watched him."
The rather hurt feeling in Joan's heart burst into sudden fire. "I am not in love," she said, "and neither is he. Men do not fall in love with girls like us, and if you say another word about it, Fanny, I won't go out to tea to-morrow; I won't, I won't!"
Fanny could only shrug her shoulders. The words "girls like us" rather flicked at her pride. Later on, however, when they were both in bed and the room in darkness save for the light thrown across the shadows by the street lamp outside, she called softly across to Joan:
"You are wrong, honey," she said, "about men and love. They do fall in love with us, sometimes, bless them, even though we aren't worth it. And anyway, you are different, why shouldn't he love you?"
Joan made no answer, only when she fell asleep at last it was against a little damp patch of pillow and the lashes that lay along her cheeks were weighed down by tears.
CHAPTER XXII
| "A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool." |
C. Chesterton.
It did not need much intuition on Mrs. Grant's part to know herself suspicious of Dick's behaviour. She listened to Mabel's information about the two young ladies he was bringing to tea with her eyes lowered. Mabel had not volunteered the information till Mrs. Grant had noticed that there were two extra cups provided for tea. They always had tea out under the trees if it was fine enough, so there had been nothing surprising in that, but Mrs. Grant's eyes had spotted the extra cups even while they stayed piled up one within the other in the shade of the silver tea-pot.