Cicely hardly knew whether to be vexed or sorry. She looked distressed and disappointed.
“I wish you would not talk so, Geneviève,” she said at last “you are quite—quite mistaken. The changes that are coming will only make you more wanted. Indeed,” she went on, hesitating a little, “it was partly the looking forward to my leaving home that made us all anxious for you to come to us—to take my place as it were. It was my doing that you were not told of my engagement at the first—before you came even. Now, I almost wish you had known it at the first.”
“Ah! yes, I wish much—I cannot say how much that I had known! Why did you not tell me? It was not kind,” Geneviève exclaimed.
There was a sort of vehement though subdued regret in her tone, which seemed to Cicely exaggerated and uncalled for.
“I don’t think you have any reason to think it unkind,” she said rather coldly. “I thought you would more readily feel at ease with me if you did not know that I was going to be married. I seem older than I am, and I fancied anything of that kind would have made you feel as if I were very much older than you. That was my only reason for not telling you. And besides, there seemed no particular reason for speaking of it immediately—at that time I had no idea that I should be married for a year or two years to come.”
“Had you not?” said Geneviève, quickly. “Oh, I thought not so! I thought you always knew it—your marriage—was to be soon.”
“No,” said Cicely, hardly remembering to whom she was speaking, “No, I had no idea of it—nobody had.”
She sighed as she spoke. She was not looking at her cousin, and did not see the curiously eager expression on her face.
“Then why—if you do not wish it, I mean—” said Geneviève, “should it be sooner than a year, or two years, as you said?”
Cicely was too preoccupied to notice Geneviève’s inquisitiveness. “Trevor wishes it, and so does my father. Everybody wishes it,” she replied.