If truth be no slander, it is sometimes full as hard to bear. Wych Hazel eat her own ice for the next two minutes and wondered what it was.
'Hazel, my dear, you had need to be a saint!' Mme. Lasalle whispered. 'It is—absolutely—outrageous; something not to be borne!'
'But the fun of it is,' broke in Kitty again, 'that we all took it for granted it was mere lover-like devotion! And now, behold, c'est tout au contraire!'
Since the day of the ride it had been war to the knife with
Kitty Fisher.
'Kitty! Kitty!' said Mr. Kingsland in soft deprecation.
'My dear,' Mme. Lasalle went on mockingly, 'perhaps he would not approve of your eating so much ice. Hadn't you better take care?'
'Must we ask him about everything now, before we can have you?' cried Josephine, in great indignation, quite unfeigned, though possibly springing from a double root. 'O, was it he came for you to Greenbush?'
But with that Hazel roused herself.
'You had better ask him anything you want answered,' she said.
'I think he has quite a genius that way.'
'What way? O, you know, friends, perhaps, she likes it. What way, Hazel?'