“Not many. One or two only, until the last months. Then—pretty often—Mrs Beverley.”
The jealousy was still to the fore.
“You are very devoted to Mrs Beverley?”
“I’m thankful to say, I am! I needed a woman friend, and we were friends at once. There were no preliminary stages. At our second meeting it seemed absurd to address each other by formal titles. I knew her better at that early stage, than many of the women who have been my neighbours for years.”
“I should have thought,” Peignton said slowly, “that at this period of her existence Mrs Beverley was too much engrossed with her man to have any interest to spare for an outside friendship.”
The latent grudge sounded in his voice. Cassandra discerned it, and turned upon him with a smile. Without troubling to think why or wherefore, she knew that he was jealous of her intimacy with Grizel, and the knowledge was balm to her soul.
“I’ll tell you a secret!” she said, stopping her work to emphasise her words with uplifted finger. “No man can altogether engross a woman! However good, and fine, and tender he may be, there’s still a need within her that only a woman can fill. The happiest married woman needs a woman friend. The better the husband, the more she needs her. A good man is so aggravatingly free from littlenesses. He objects to grumbling; he makes the best of misfortunes; he refuses to repeat gossip; he has a tiresome habit of imagining that his wife means everything she says. If a woman is to endure a good husband with any resignation, she must have another woman near by with whom she can let herself go!”
They laughed together, and Cassandra stretched out her hand for the silks which Dane was smoothing between his palms. Just for a moment the two hands touched, but after that moment there followed a pause of mutual self-consciousness. Cassandra bent her head, unwinding and re-winding her silks with careful deliberation. Dane played with the tangled ball, longing, yet not daring to ask what shade would be next required. He looked with distaste upon the two separate threads; wondering how long they would take to work. When Cassandra spoke again, she surprised him by a personal question:
“How soon are you to be married, Captain Peignton?”
For a moment he stared in surprise. Then he laughed.