"Betray! I, my dear?" and she broke into a confused explanation.
It was a remark of Percy's she had been referring to, a silly, trivial remark, not, she was sure, intended maliciously. Why, every one teased every one. Didn't she know it? And especially about the things that were most personal, "and, well, sacred." It was nothing. Just that; and she should not have repeated it.
"Tell me exactly, please," said I.
"Well, Aunt Alice was talking of marriage; and Miss Bowater smiled. And Aunt Alice—you know her mocking way—asked how, at her age—Miss Bowater's—she had learned to look at the same time both charming and cynical. 'Don't forget, my dear,' they were her very words, 'that the cynicism wears the longer.' But Miss Bowater laughed, and changed the subject by asking if she could do anything for your headache. It was the afternoon, you remember, when you were lying down. That was all."
"And Mr Maudlen?"
The fair cheek reddened. "Oh, Percy made a joke—about you. Just one of his usual horrid jokes. My dear"—she came and knelt down beside me and laid her gentle hand on my shoulder; "don't look so—so awful. It's only how things go."
I drew the hand down. It smelled as fresh and sweet as jessamine.
"Don't bother about me, Susan," I said coldly. "Just leave me to my moths. I could show you scorpions and hornets ten times more dangerous than a mere Death's Head. You don't suppose I care? Why, as you say, even God has His little joke with some of us. I'm quite used to it."
"Don't, don't," she implored me. "You are over-tired, you poor little thing. You go on reading and reading. Why, your teeth are chattering."