"Why?"
"Because of Bunny. She told me people were saying dreadful things about me. That's why she left. She couldn't bear it."
Lucy ground his teeth. "She couldn't bear it? That shows what she was, doesn't it? But you—you don't mind what people say?"
"No," she said, "I don't mind."
"Yes!" she cried passionately. "I do mind. I've always minded. It's just the one thing I can't get over."
"It's the one thing," said Lucy, "we have to learn to get over. When you've lived to be as old as I am, you'll see how very little it matters what people say of us. Especially when we know what other people think."
"Other people?"
"Friends," he said, "the people who really care."
"Ah, if we only could know what they think. That's the most horrible thing of all—what they think."