“A hoax?” Chip looked at her to see if she were joking.
“Of course it is. Oh, I believed in it too, once. It’s like Santa Claus. I never could see that the pleasure of believing in him was worth the awfulness of finding out that he’s only a myth.”
Chip wondered if she were making fun of love, or whether she was merely holding the schoolgirl’s idea of it up to scorn. He didn’t know. He had never expected to find a love that would transform the world, and he had found it. What he had yet to discover was that women, after all, are the terrible realists. Men manage to preserve their illusions better. Few of them love with their eyes open, and women only really love when their eyes are open. For women are meant to see faults, being the mothers of children, and their critical faculties are more on the alert.
Judy had looked for a miracle. She had been searching for a fairy castle, and now found herself becoming interested in an imperfect modern dwelling. Chip had not asked for a miracle, and lo! it had come to pass. He listened to Judy making fun of romantic love—which she did with great satisfaction to herself until interrupted by tea—and refused to believe that she meant what she said. For romantic love does undoubtedly come to very simple people, and Chip was very simple.
He didn’t trouble to disagree with her. He was happy to be hearing from her own lips that she had never been in love. Not that it made any difference, beyond the pleasure that it gave him, for to love Judy was not the same thing where he was concerned as to make love to her. That was unthinkable.
They left Madame Claire’s together at six, and Chip, happily reckless as well as recklessly happy, walked with Judy all the way to Eaton Square. It was settled that he was to dine there and begin his rejuvenation the following Wednesday night. For Judy told herself that she couldn’t keep Chip a secret from the family forever, and they might as well meet him and get done with it.
“I hope you won’t be frightened of mother,” she said. “I don’t know why it is, but she does frighten people. I don’t think she wants to, really. She and father are very keen on what Noel calls the ‘kin game.’ You know the sort of thing I mean—who’s related to who and how.”
“I see,” said Chip.
“So perhaps you’d better tell me some of your family history. Then I could tell them, and you won’t be bothered. Because they’re sure to want to know.”
She colored as she said it, and Chip guessed that there were mortifying experiences behind her warning.