“No, he didn’t go—after all. At least, not then. I saw him whenever we could arrange it, he used to come and dine... He complained that he never had me to himself; but I told him that, as soon as the engagement was announced, he could have me as much to himself as he liked. When my sisters were engaged, every one ran away as if they’d got plague... I did dine with him once or twice, but in some ways Aunt Connie’s as bad as mother; she always comes into my room at night to see I’m home and she’d have had a fit, if she’d known that I was dining alone with Johnnie. We used to invent people—‘Captain Richards’ and ‘Mrs. Bosanquet’; whenever Aunt Connie wanted to know who’d been there, I used to say ‘Captain Richards and Mrs. Bosanquet’.”
She laughed feebly at her strategem, but Eric was disquieted. Innocence or stupidity might excuse her for running risks; but there must be a blind spot in her conscience, if she could tell a lie so light-heartedly and then talk about it.
“And what happened then?,” he asked, deferring censure for fear of drying the stream of her confidence.
“Well, then the opera started, and I hardly saw him at all. Aunt Connie was there every night, and I felt she had first call on me. Besides, I liked going; and there was always room in the box, if he’d wanted to come. He said he didn’t care to be with me when there was a crowd of other people... Then he did go away. That was weeks ago, and I didn’t see him again till last night.”
“Did he write?”
Ivy turned with anguished protest in her eyes, as though he had asked the question for the pleasure of hurting her:
“No.”
“And what happened last night?”
As she hesitated, he could see her hardening; and the grip on his hand tightened.
“I hardly knew what I was doing,” she whispered. “I couldn’t see... But I felt I had to go... He opened the door, and I asked him... Her coat was on a chair. I shan’t tell you what we said... But I did tell him he was a beast to behave like that, when he was engaged to me, a beast not to write, a beast to make me miserable!”