“No, you won’t!” Claire cried defiantly. “Shetland shawl indeed! Who ever heard of a girl of twenty-one in a Shetland shawl? I’m going to a party, my dear. The joy of that thought would keep me warm through a dozen fogs.”
“You’ll have to come back from the party, however, and you mayn’t feel so jubilant then. It’s not too exciting when you don’t know a soul, and sit on one seat all evening. I knew a girl who went to a big crush and didn’t even get a cup of coffee. Nobody asked her to go down.”
Claire swept her cloak to one side, and sat down on a chair facing the sofa, her white gloves clasped on her knee, the embroidered bag hanging by its golden cords to the tip of the golden slippers. She fixed her eyes steadily on her companion, and there was in them a spark of anger, before which Cecil had the grace to flush.
“Sorry! Really I am sorry—”
“‘Repentance is to leave
The sins we loved before,
And show that we in earnest grieve
By doing so No More!’”
quoted Claire sternly. “Really, Cecil, you are the champion wet blanket of your age. It is too bad. I have to do all the perking up, and you can’t even let me go to a party without damping my ardour. I was thinking it over the other night, and I’ve hit on a promising plan. I’m going to allow you a grumble day a week—but only one. On that day you can grumble as much as ever you like, from the moment you get up till the moment you go to bed. You’ll be within your rights, and I shall not complain. I’ll have my own day, too, when you can find out what it feels like to listen, but won’t be allowed to say a word in return. For the rest of the week you’ll just have to grin and bear it. You won’t be allowed a single growl.”
Cecil knitted her brows, and looked ashamed and uncomfortable, as she invariably did when taxed with her besetting sin. Claire’s charge on mental poisoning had struck home, and she had honestly determined to turn over a new leaf; but the habit had been indulged too long to be easily abandoned. Unconsciously, as it were, disparaging remarks flowed from her lips, combined with a steady string of objections, adverse criticisms, and presentiments of darkness and gloom. At the present moment she felt a little startled to realise how firmly the habit was established, and the proposal of a licenced grumble day held out some promise of a cure.
“Then I’ll have Monday!” she cried briskly. “I am always in a bad temper on Mondays, so I shall be able to make the most of my chance.” She was silent for a moment considering the prospect, then was struck with a sudden thought. “But now and then I do have a nice week-end, and then I shouldn’t want to grumble at all. I suppose I could change the day?”
There was a ring of triumph in Claire’s laugh.
“Not you! My dear girl, that’s just what I am counting upon! Sometimes the sun will shine, sometimes you’ll get a nice letter, sometimes the girls will be intelligent and interesting, and then, my dear, you’ll forget, and the day will skip past, and before you know where you are it will be Tuesday morning and your chance will have gone. Cecil, fancy it! A whole fortnight without a grumble. It seems almost too good to be true!”