"That's a woman's way of marrying on her debts.… You're better, Babs, than when I came to see you in London. I hope you're—happier."
"Ah, if only I could undo.…"
She broke off, and George looked at her cautiously to see whether she was trying him with the pose of conscience-stricken penitent, already a little out-moded after fourteen months of war.
"You certainly had your share of scrapes, but there was nothing discreditable in them. Too much vitality——"
She spread out her hands, white and transparent in the sun-light.
"I'd done everything else! Being with father everywhere.… And I was driven into it by opposition. I must have been a mule in a previous incarnation. D'you know, if father says he's coming here by the 4.10, I have to come by the 5.40, however inconvenient it may be to everybody—just to assert myself?"
"But that wasn't the only reason," George suggested.
"What d'you mean?"
She had ceased to smile, and two faint lines of annoyance were visible between her eye-brows.
"I'm sorry. It was no business of mine," said George apologetically.