“No, I haven’t,” said Imogen, “but I don’t think I care for it.”
“Not just now, I daresay,” he said kindly, “for you are vexed and upset, I know.”
“How do you know?” she asked, some laggard tears rising slowly as she spoke.
“Never mind. I was told I should find you here, and so I have. I know what it’s about too,” for Major Winchester was great at going to the point. “It isn’t a very big trouble after all, but then at seventeen—”
“I’m eighteen—eighteen past,” interrupted Imogen, so indignantly that the tears hid themselves in a fright, which her friend was not sorry to see. He smiled.
“Well—even at eighteen. I was once eighteen myself,” (Imogen could not help smiling a little); “and I can understand that, as you have to do this thing, you would rather do it well than badly. I can understand, too, that Trixie is probably not the most delicate and tactful person to have to do with in the circumstances.”
“I hate being laughed at,” said Imogen frankly.
“Naturally. Villars is really not a bad fellow, but he thinks he’s bound to keep his hobby always at full-speed. Now—have you got your part?”
“Yes,” she replied, extracting some rather dilapidated-looking pages from her pocket, “here it is. This is the worst bit,” she went on, “the little dialogue with Hubert. ‘Oh, to think how I trusted you,’ it begins.”