‘I should like you to be kind to her, Mollie is awfully kind to her, and she is very grateful to Mollie, but’—and he paused a moment—‘Mollie isn’t you.’
‘I don’t see what I can do for her that you and Mollie can’t do much better. What do you want me to do?’ Hugo fidgeted with the jade box on the chimney-piece.
‘Oh, I don’t know exactly—anything just to show her you like her. She minds about her clothes. Couldn’t you advise her about her clothes? She admires yours so much.’
And then I was angry. I wanted to say, ‘I am damned if I will.’ But I only did say, ‘I tried once to teach her to dance. It was no good.’ That was all I said, but Hugo knew I was angry. I could see that from the way he looked at me, and when he looked at me like that it was harder still not to cry. He looked hurt and puzzled, like a child who is spoken to crossly and doesn’t know what it has done wrong.
I was ashamed of myself again, and very unhappy.
XV
One day I was with Mollie in her flat, and we were dressing to go out. We were in her bedroom brushing our hair, and I remembered that dance at Yearsly on Guy’s twenty-first birthday, and old Nunky brushing my hair. I had been so pleased with my hair that night, and so had she, and now suddenly I hated it.
I said:
‘I do wish my hair was different, I am so tired of it like this,’
Mollie said: