Lettice said nothing; her face might have betrayed her, had Dorothea been on the alert; but she was already back with Denis. She did not like Gardiner, and she would never understand him. But Lettice—by that naïve assumption of her prime concern for her cousin Dorothea had shown her, rather more plainly than she liked, where she stood. Her center of interest had shifted. She was scarcely sorry for Denis; she was almost angry with him. "He shouldn't have done it," she said with a touch of sternness. "I am disappointed in him." Lettice expected a good deal from her friends. Her feelings had changed, adjusting themselves unconsciously to the change in Denis. The protective instinct was dead. "When I was a child, I spake as a child...." Denis had put away childish things, and as a man she judged him.
Gardiner had disappointed her too, yet with him she was not angry. His failure had been involuntary; and he had redeemed it, coming back of his own free will to put his manhood to the test. He was under the question now, this minute, every minute of the day. For the first time she let herself think of Denis's postscript: tacitly acknowledging that if she had not done so before, it was because she dared not. She could reason about Denis, she could not reason about this, though it lay in her heart like a stone all the time. For Denis the issue was decided; whether he went to Mrs. Byrne or not, his eyes had been opened, he had tasted the fruit of the tree, he could never regain that child-like quality of which Dorothea had robbed him. If he took the one step further—well—yes, it did matter, it mattered horribly, the constriction at her heart was only less than she felt in thinking of the other sufferer. Still, it was less, for Denis would retrieve himself; Gardiner would not. If he failed now, he would be a broken man; he would go under. "Insubordination, assaulting a warder"—the words seemed ominous as thunder on a sultry night.
And meanwhile here was the fount and origin of all this trouble, sitting on the rug, leaning her small head, stuffed with tears, against the wall, a dolorous little heap: poor child, she had punished herself worse than her victims. What to do with her? Lettice had never responded with enthusiasm to Dorothea's advances. Dorothea was intense; Lettice preferred the humdrum. Nor, as has been said, could she easily forgive. Still, if Dorothea really needed her, she supposed she would have to produce some sort of response. She moved about, laying the table, cutting the bread; presently she came to the fire to make toast. Dorothea roused herself. "Let me do that," she said, her voice still thick and languid with tears. "You go and sit down."
"You'll spoil your frock," said Lettice, with a last faintly disparaging glance at the violet velvet. Dorothea's eyes glinted; she set her teeth, stooped down, seized the hem of her skirt between her strong little hands, and tore it, r-r-rip, half-way up to the waist.
"That for my frock!"
What a baby it was, after all! "Now I shall have to mend that before you can go home," Lettice admonished her, in a tone which, for Dorothea, she had never used before.
"Don't care," retorted Dorothea, defiant chin in air. And then, with a swift little snuggling movement, she nestled against Lettice. "Oh, Lettice, Lettice, I've been bad, and hateful, and I don't deserve to have any one like me, but—may I come and see you sometimes? I do seem to get into such muddles when I'm all by myself—and I haven't any one in all the world to go to now but you!"
Lettice did not answer, because she was engaged in rescuing the toasting fork from her guest's heedless hand, and blowing out the flaming bread. She scraped off the cinders, and with a firmness that admitted no question put that piece on her own plate, and the other, which she had made herself, on Dorothea's.
"Now come and have your tea," was her sole reply.
Bread and salt—they ate it together.