“Don’t you think it went off well?”
Dan said that it had been ripping and no mistake.
“I like Lady Caiwarn; she’s bully, and I liked the king. He spoke to me as if he had known me for a year.”
She began to be a little more at her ease.
“I didn’t care much for the fiddling, but Letty Lane made up for all the rest,” said Dan. “Wasn’t she great?”
“Ra-ther!” The duchess’ tone was so warm that he asked frankly: “Well, why didn’t you speak to her, Lily?” And the directness caught her unprepared. The insult to the actress by which she had planned to teach him a lesson failed to give her the bravado she found she needed to meet Dan’s question. Her part of the transaction, deliberate, unkind, seemed worse and more serious through his headlong act, when he had driven off, braving her, in the motor of an actress. She didn’t dare to be jealous.
“Wasn’t it too dreadful?” she murmured. “Do you think she noticed it too awfully? I was just about to go up and speak to her when the prime minister—”
Dan interrupted the duchess. He blushed for her.
“Never mind, Lily.” His tone had in it something of benevolence. “If you really didn’t mean to be mean—”
She was enchanted by her easy victory. “It was abominable.”