Lucy was asked, Did she like it all, and boldly owned, All. "The dark is like an eiderdown bed. Impossible to imagine anything softer." She rubbed her eyes. "It has made me dreadfully sleepy," she said. "I think, if you won't be horrified—" Vera said that she should go up with her. James stooped to her cheek, Lord Considine bowed over her hand.
In Lucy's room the pair had a long talk, all of which I don't pretend to report. It began with, "I'm so glad that you take to poor Considine. You are so very much his sort of woman. He's a dear, simple creature, far too good for most of us—and a Nugent freak, I assure you. They've never known the like in the County of Cork.... I like him immensely, but of course he's too remote for the like of me. No small talk, you know, and I'm aburst with it. I talk while I'm thinking, and he when he has thought. You understand that kind, evidently. I suppose your clever husband is like that. Not that I don't get on with him. We did excellently—I think he knew everybody that I could think of, and I everybody he chose to mention. But Jimmy likes Considine, you know.... By the way, it was very disgraceful of Jimmy, but not so disgraceful as you might think. In its way it's a compliment. He thinks so much of you—Oh, I may as well tell you the shocking truth. He ran away. What a moth in the drawing-room ought to do, but never can, Jimmy, not at all a moth, quite suddenly did. My dear Mrs. Macartney, Jimmy ran away from you. Flying! I doubt it profoundly. Wrestling, I fancy, fighting beasts at Ephesus. You have doubtless discovered how enthusiastic Jimmy is. Most attractive, no doubt, but sometimes embarrassing. As once, when we were in Naples—in the funicolare, halfway up Vesuvius—Jimmy sees a party at the other end of the carriage: mother, daughter, two pig-tailed children, and a governess—quite a pretty gel. Jimmy was enormously struck with this governess. He could see nothing else, and nobody else either, least of all me, of course. He muttered and rolled his eyes about—his chin jutted like the bow of a destroyer. Presently he couldn't stand it. He marched across the carriage and took off his hat with a bow—my dear, to the governess, poor gel! 'I beg your pardon,' says he, 'but I have to tell you something. I think you are the most beautiful person I ever saw in my life, and take pride in saying so.' Wasn't it awful? I didn't dare look at them—but it seemed all right afterwards. I suppose she told her people that of course he was mad. So he is, in a way; but it's quite nice madness. I won't say that Jimmy never goes too far—but nobody could be nicer about it afterwards than Jimmy—no one. He's awfully sorry, and contrite, and all that. Most people like him amazingly. I suppose he's told you about our father? He loves all the stories there are about him ..." and so on. Vera Nugent was a great talker.
Lucy at her prayers, Lucy in her bed, had large gaps in the sequence of her thoughts. Safety lay only with Lancelot. She could centre herself in him. Lancelot it was who with forceful small fingers, and half-shy, half-sly eyes, finally closed down hers, with a "Go to sleep, you tired mamma."
CHAPTER XIII
MARTLEY THICKET (2)
The day that succeeded was prelude to the night, sufficient to show Lucy her way into that spacious unknown. By her own desire she passed it quietly, and had leisure to review and to forecast.
She put it to herself, roughly, thus. I may guess, but I don't know, who loves me so. It cannot continue—it shall stop this very night. But this one night I must go to him, if only to say that it can never be again. And it won't be again; I am sure of that. However he may take it, whatever he may be driven to, he will do what I say must be. As for me, I don't think women can ever be very happy. I expect I shall get used to it—one does, to almost anything, except toothache. And I have Lancelot. She put all this quite frankly to herself, not shirking the drab outlook or the anguish of doing a thing for the last time—always a piercing ordeal for her. As for James, if she thought of him at all, it was with pity. Poor dear, he really was rather dry!
She ought to have been very angry with Urquhart, but she was not. "The first time he did it, I understand. I am sure he had a sudden thought, and couldn't resist it. It must have been more than half fun, and the rest because it was so romantic. The other times were much more wrong. But I'm not angry with him. I ought to be—but I'm not—not at all. I suppose that is because I couldn't be angry with him if I tried ... not if he did much more.... No, I am sure he doesn't hold me cheap. He's not at all like that. James might—only James holds all women cheap. But He doesn't. I never felt at all like this about a man before. Only—it must stop, after this once...."