"Of course I want to." She said it in a tone that for Nicky pointed to another blunder.
"I only thought," said he simply, "it might bore you."
XII
Miss Bickersteth's house was round the corner. So small a house that a front room and a back room thrown together hardly gave Caro space enough for tea-parties. But as the back room formed a recess, what space she had was admirably adapted for the discreet arrangement of conversation in groups. Its drawback was that persons in the recess remained unaware of those who entered by the door of the front room, until they were actually upon them.
Through that door, opened gently by the little servant, Miss Bickersteth, in the recess, was heard inquiring with some excitement, "Can't either of you tell me who she is?"
Only Nina and Laura were with her. Jane knew from their abrupt silence, as she entered, that they had been discussing George Tanqueray's marriage. She gathered that they had only just begun. There was nothing for it but to invite them to go on, to behave in all things as if nothing had happened, or could happen to her.
"Please don't stop," she said, "it sounds exciting."
"It is. But Mr. Nicholson disapproves of scandal," said Caro, not without address.
"He's been talking nothing else to me," said Jane.