"Perhaps not, though it is only the having been pampered and waited on hand and foot that has made me so susceptible. I must really begin to live like other girls now I am so well again," said Jeannie.
"Only do not make such a sudden start. Have you any pain?"
"Not a bit, now. I had a little twinge or two, but it is all gone. The strongest girl would have felt as much if she had been prancing round as I did a minute ago. I am as well as you are, Norah. It is downright wicked of Doctor Connor to say that I must have another change for a month or so, and then he will decide about next winter. As though one lost nothing by leaving a home like mule with all its comforts. I have often thought that the loss of them counterbalanced the good done by the 'entire change' the doctors are so fond of ordering. If I could take Benvora and all belonging to it, Jet included, away with me, I should care less. And I would have you, Norah, if I could."
"That is impossible, dear. I am quite indispensable at home. But there is Jack Corry. You will want him most of all, now your engagement is a settled thing."
"Want Jack with me!" exclaimed Jeannie. "Why, Norah, what can have put such an absurd notion into your head? If you realised my feelings the least little bit, you would know that the sweet drop in my cup of banishment from Ballycorene is the thought that I shall leave Jack Corry behind me. He bores me to death. He follows me like a lapdog, gives me no chance of wishing to see him, for he is here so often that I am at my wits' end to get rid of him half the time. Jack Corry, indeed!" And Jeannie gave her pretty head a toss, as though she and the individual in question had neither thought nor wish in common.
Norah looked utterly bewildered, and heard without understanding her friend's words.
"I thought you cared so much for Jack," she said. "If not, why did you act in such a way as to make him think you did? 'Why did you accept his offer, and allow your engagement to be announced, if—"
Norah hesitated to put her thoughts into words. She was true to the core herself, and infinitely above the petty vanity and cruel selfishness combined which make up the character of a flirt—vanity, which is ever craving for admiration, and never satisfied with what it gets; selfishness, that cares only for gratifying the whim of the moment, without heeding what the amusement may cost some true heart; vanity, that loves to parade the homage that is rendered, yet only values it so far as it can be displayed and utilised to advance its own importance, or to while away time that would otherwise hang heavily; selfishness, that having had its turn served, its little day of triumph, never asks whether the moths that fluttered round had merely sunned themselves in the light and suffered no harm, or whether they had been cruelly scorched whilst suspecting none.
Hard hearts are like diamonds. The flirt's weapons glance harmlessly aside from them and leave no wound, as the best-tempered tool leaves no scratch on the surface of the precious stone. But those same weapons have pierced many a true and tender heart, and virtually killed its faith in womanly truth, and taught it to doubt the possibility of honest girlish affection.
It seemed too dreadful for Norah to associate the idea of vanity and selfishness with her friend Jeannie, a girl just eighteen, and looking even younger, with her fair face and childish head covered with a crop of short curls. Yet as she gave a mental glance at the past she felt that Jeannie's actions and words belied each other.