“People?”
“Well—my people.”
“I don’t call natural development change. I saw in you very plainly when we first met what you are now. You have got there. That’s all.”
Her lips were very pale. How strangely unshining her hair was.
“Yes, she looked punished!” he thought. “It’s that look of punishment which sets her quite apart from all other women.”
She glanced at the letter he was holding and sat down on a very broad green divan. There were many cushions upon it; she did not heap them behind her, but sat quite upright. She did not ask him to sit down. He would do as he liked. Absurd formalities of any kind did not enter into her scheme of life.
“How is Jimmy?” he asked.
“Brilliantly well. He’s been at Eton for a long time, doing dreadfully at work—he’s a born dunce—and splendidly at play. How he would appreciate you as you are now!”
She spoke with a gravity that was both careless and intense. He sat down near her. In his letter asking to see her he had not told her that he had a special object in writing to visit her. By her glance at Brayfield’s letter he knew that she had gathered it.
They talked of Jimmy for a few minutes; then Dion said: