Clare cried and cried. 'Oh,' she said, 'I've not had a happy moment since,' which was as nearly true as these excessive statements ever are.
Lady Pinkerton tried to calm her, and said, 'My poor, dear child, you don't know what you are saying. You must go to bed now, and tell us in the morning, when you are more yourself.'
Clare didn't go to bed until Lord Pinkerton had promised to ring up the Haste. Then she went, with Lady Pinkerton, who was crying too now, because she was beginning to believe the story.
2
Jane didn't know what she believed. She didn't believe what Clare had implied—that Oliver had tried to kiss her. Because Oliver hadn't been like that; it wasn't the sort of thing he did. Jane thought it caddish of Clare to have tried to make them think that of him. But she might, Jane thought, have been angry with him about something else; she might have pushed him…. Or she might not; she might be imagining or inventing the whole thing. You never knew, with Clare.
If it was true, Jane thought, she had been a fool about Arthur. But, if he hadn't done it, why had he been so queer? Why had he avoided her, and been so odd and ashamed from the first morning on?
Perhaps, thought Jane, he had suspected Clare.
She would see him to-morrow morning, and ask him.
3
Jane saw Gideon next day. She rang him up, and he came over to Hampstead after tea.