“Why did you never write to me all last winter?”
He could not help a slight flush.
“You had so many friends without me,” he said, stammeringly, at last.
“One hasn’t so many old friends.” The voice was reproachful. “I thought you must be offended with me.”
“How could I be!”
“And you call me Lady Constance,” she went on indignantly. “When did you ever do such a thing in Rome, or when we were travelling?”
His look betrayed his feeling.
“Ah, but you were a little girl then, and now—”
“Now”—she said impatiently—“I am just Constance Bledlow, as I was then—to you. But I don’t give away my Christian name to everybody. I don’t like, for instance, being forced to give it to Aunt Ellen!”
And she threw a half-laughing, half-imperious glance towards Mrs. Hooper in the distance.