“Forget ’em,” he replied, with a clipped ruthlessness she remembered well.
The two women had in fact glanced at her curiously and critically, but she did not care. They were certainly a very smart party. She wondered what they would think if they knew that she, too, not so many years ago, had worn the clothes they were wearing and cultivated their dry, sophisticated smiles. It appeared to her now a diluted and uninteresting sophistication....
“Moira,” he was saying, “I’ve got to know all about you. I’m hungry for information. You don’t look any younger. But you don’t look any the worse, either. What wouldn’t they give back home to be with me now!”
“Rob, it’s good to see you!”
“Honest? Well, I’m certainly glad you feel that way. Still, I always knew you’d be just the same. Why did you do it, Moira? Why in the devil did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Oh, all that—rot. It was silly, Moira. You’re one of us, to this day. Always will be, you know. Who cared?”
She laughed a few notes of warm laughter that was still a clear stream free from the sediment of bitterness.
“I never think of that any more. Perhaps it was silly. But I’ve been happier.”
“H’m.” She was conscious that his eyes searched her face, and rather proud that what he found there would make it impossible to pity her. “H’m,” he repeated, “well, maybe you have. I guess you know a lot.”