Then Thurley resolved a dangerous but very feminine thing. Had she but known, many other younger and lovelier women than herself had resolved the same thing regarding Bliss Hobart. She would make him care for her! Not even Miss Clergy’s vow should prove an obstacle. She would make him care ... after that was an undetermined stage of rapture, a new and alluring sort of ooze in which to take refuge after hateful hours with Santoza and Antone and wondering moments as to what Hobart was doing and where he hid for his summer holiday! Thurley would make him care. Having achieved that, she would then employ Lissa’s theories as a vaulting pole to take her well over the handicap which Miss Clergy fancied she had forever placed in the way of romantic love.
No woman had yet succeeded. This Thurley did not know; like all the others she was sure that she was to prove the exception.
She worked with Antone and Santoza cultivating an attitude of indifference to offset their unpleasant personalities. Miss Clergy, in her squirrel cage of a world, looked on with pleased but feeble eyes and told Thurley she must go abroad with Ernestine Christian.
“You’ll come, too?” Thurley begged. “You must not stay so alone. All you do is to drive and read—and you do read the same books over and over—and talk with me a little and sleep a great deal. When I drag you into a shop you are as timid as can be and you won’t meet people though I’ve coaxed and begged. Please come with us—think of France, Spain, Italy,” Thurley hurried on to produce many new and tempting arguments.
Miss Clergy shook her head. “He came from Italy,” she said. “I could not bear it.”
Remorseful, undecided what was best to say, Thurley stood back abashed. “Oh, don’t let it hurt for so long—you’ve burnt up all your joy,” recalling Hobart’s words.
Miss Clergy waved Thurley off. “I’ll go to a rest cure,” she decided. “Now be off, my head is starting to ache.”
Still Thurley hesitated. “You won’t go back to the Corners?” she asked.
Miss Clergy gave a cackling laugh. “Don’t worry, Thurley, I’d not go back even to dance at Dan Birge’s wedding.”