“And I hear I may congratulate you,” she said. “You have got what you wanted.”
“Someone has told you,” he retorted, “who is not friendly to it.”
“On the contrary, someone who has given it the most cordial support—Alicia Livingstone.”
He mused upon this for an instant, as if it presented Alicia for the first time under such an aspect.
“She has been immensely kind,” he asserted. “But she wasn't at first. At first, she was hostile, like you, only that her hostility was different, just as she is different. She had to be converted,” he went on hopefully, “but it was less difficult than I imagined. I think she takes a kind of pride in conquering her prejudices, and being true to the real breadth of her nature.”
“I am sure she would like her nature to be broad. She might very well be content that it is charming. And what is the difference between her hostility and mine?”
“The main difference,” Lindsay said, with a gay half round upon her, “is that hers has sweetly vanished, while yours”—he made a dramatic gesture—“walks between us.”
“I know. I tried to stiffen her. I appealed to the worst in her on your behalf. But it wasn't any use. She succumbed, as you say, to her nobler instincts.”
Hilda stabbed a great crisp fallen teak leaf with her parasol, and spent her paradox in twirling it.
“One can so easily get an affair of one's own out of all proportion,” Duff said. “And I should be sorry—do you really want me to talk about this?”