Читать книгу Wintersmoon - Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole - Страница 16

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Janet was ready for the great family party.

In half an hour's time she would have surrendered herself to Purefoys, Darrants, Mellons, Medlers, Chichesters. In half an hour's time she would be standing there simply that they might gaze upon her, make their comments, deliver their judgments.

And she was not afraid.

That was the astonishing thing. Rosalind declared that were it she, she would be terrified. Going as nobody at all—simply as the sister—of course she did not mind.

But Janet was surprised at her own absence of fear. She had been anticipating this event for many days; she saw in Wildherne's allusions to it that he was himself nervous. She had expected to be afraid and, with joy she knew it, she was not.

She was not afraid, because other things of a more serious nature were occupying her mind, and the most serious of them was Rosalind. She knew as she stood at the window of their little room and looked down at the pattern of lights threading the dusk below her that she was in one of those moods described by Rosalind as "melodramatic," those moods that Rosalind so deeply detested. She only knew these moods in relation to her sister, and they came always when she doubted Rosalind's love for her. There were times—and of late they had been frequent—when she seemed to lose touch with Rosalind altogether, when there was nothing to feed the hunger of her love. Calm, sensible, controlled as she could be with everyone else, with Rosalind she was sometimes like a desperate lover. She knew well when these moods were upon her and she hated them, but hate them as she might they gripped her with a dreadful and torturing pain as though the fingers of some animal were laid upon her heart.

Rosalind came in, lovely in a white dress cut low enough to startle the Purefoy world. Janet was in black, a necklace of small pearls round her throat.

"Rosalind—you never turned up at lunch after all."

"No, darling, I couldn't. I'd have telephoned but.... How grand you look. Carrying yourself like a queen, the papers would say."

"Yes, you might have telephoned. Why didn't you?"

Rosalind's eyes were restless, saying, "Oh where can I escape?" She hated more than any other thing in her life these moods of Janet's.

"I don't know why I didn't. Oh, Janet, don't be tiresome. Not to-night. And I'm so sick of 'Where have you been? Why didn't you? What were you doing?' Can't you see how irritating it is?"

Janet's voice trembled. "And can't you see how selfish you are? Doesn't it occur to you that these last days—the last that we shall have alone—matter to me, that I want to be with you, and that you are always escaping me?"

"Yes, I am escaping you if you want to know. Just because you bother so. Why can't you let it all be natural? You are always forcing everything. You are natural enough with other people. Why not with me?"

"Because I love you so, because I love you more than all the rest of the world put together over and over again. That's why. Rosalind—darling—don't withdraw yourself now, now of all times, when I need you, when I want your love——"

"But I'm not withdrawing myself. You're so melodramatic, Janet. Always with me, never in the least with anyone else."

"But I'm lonely, Rosalind. Without you I haven't anyone. No one in the world. I must have you. I must. I must."

"That's a nice thing to say a month or two before your marriage. Oh, I know you don't love him, but you're always telling me what wonderful friends you are. Surely you don't need me so much now you've got him."

"Not if you're happy." Janet drew her sister close to her. "You haven't been happy for ages. And you won't tell me anything. Of course I'm miserable when I see there's something the matter."

"There's nothing the matter." Then Rosalind went on more gently. "There's the bell. The taxi's there. Don't worry, Janet, dear. I'm quite all right, and you're going to be Queen of the Evening and I one of your humblest subjects. Now let's be happy. I'm sorry about luncheon. I am truly. But you know what I am, never in the right place at the right time. I'm hopeless."

They kissed and went together down the dark little stairs.

Inside the taxi Janet was miserable. Combined with her unhappiness about Rosalind was also the consciousness that she was being terribly unfair to Wildherne. It was true that he and his family, the Duke, the Duchess, and all the Purefoy world, might slip into the nethermost pit, and if only Rosalind were spared she would not care. Not at all? Well, only a very little. Oddly with that thought came the knowledge that she would miss Wildherne. He had been very good to her during these last weeks, and her heart, hungry for affection, always responded to any kindness. But one kiss from Rosalind outweighed all the kindness in the world from others. And this uncertainty. Why would Rosalind never tell her anything?

She made one more attempt.

"Rosalind, will you promise if there's anything the matter—even a little thing—to let me know at once?"

"Of course I will. You old goose, what could be the matter?"

"Anything might. There isn't anything, is there?"

"No, I tell you. No."

"It isn't Tom Seddon, is it?"

"Tom Seddon?" Rosalind laughed. "Heavens, no! It will be a long time before Tom keeps me awake!"

"He's most tremendously in love with you."

"Is he?"

"You know he is. Put him out of his misery, Rosalind, if you don't care for him. It isn't fair to leave him in doubt."

"Darling, you talk just like a Victorian novel. And here we are. Now for the fun!"

Wildherne, standing behind his mother at the top of the staircase, had a new impression of Janet. He was always just now receiving new impressions of her. It was as though someone were forcing him to realise that this affair of marriage was more complicated and subtle than he had as yet acknowledged to himself.

How many Janets was he marrying, and how many Wildhernes would marry her?

The crowd pressing up the staircase was very great. Janet, taller than most of the women, seemed, with her carriage and simple clothes, to be set apart from them. She looked proud, aloof, almost inhuman. He did not know that even now she was still thinking of Rosalind.

He had beautiful jewels waiting for her, but he was pleased to-night that she should be so simple. Her black hair, piled high, had no ornament; her neck and bust were superb. Yet she was not beautiful—kindly and a little remote—to-night she was finer than he had ever seen her, but at once she was always extinguished when you saw Rosalind. Rosalind's perfection of beauty did not mean monotony; she was saved from that by her delicate shell-pink colour and by the gold of her hair that, in its waves, hid shade upon shade of light.

As she came up the stairs, her eyes shining, her lips a little parted with her anticipated pleasure, her body moving with perfect grace and rhythm, she seemed to Wildherne the most beautiful creature ever seen by him. And yet not a pulse in his body beat the faster at the sight of her. Diana, if it had been she! And she would not of course be here to-night. Janet was speaking to his mother; with a little unexpected clap of pleasure he realised that he was glad that she was there, that she was his friend; there was already a sort of homeliness, a fireside feeling in his thought of her. Poor, dark Janet! lonelier, far lonelier than he knew.

The Duchess greeted her very kindly and then Wildherne came and led her into the long ballroom.

To Rosalind, following the happy pair, the party seemed at first sight a rather dowdy one. The room was very fine with its white walls, shining background to the family pictures and its glitter and sparkle of light, but nobody was very smartly dressed. Very few young people. No naked people at all. A great many old men with ribbons and orders. Faces stood out. The Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of course there would be lots of clergy....

And then it came to her slowly that the whole had something of an air, something rather grand, but something unreal as though it were a pageant. No one seemed to move, voices were low, very dimly from some obscure distance stole the murmur of a band, and the eyes of the stout mild gentleman and lady in the Purefoy Gainsborough stared down at Rosalind's golden hair and slim body and naked back as though they wondered what she was doing there.

Whether it were the Gainsborough or no she was aware, for the first time for many a month, that her clothes were unlike any others in the room. She did not care, but she did hope that soon she might find a friend, someone with whom she could laugh a little, just a little, at all these quaint old people.

Janet meanwhile had little time for observation. At the sight of the Duke, so square and sturdy, so aristocratic and at the same time so romantic with his square-cut white beard, piratical to-night as though this shining floor were the deck of his vessel and these all his captives, wearing his decorations with an air and yet also with an adorable absent-mindedness—she felt love for him flood her heart. The loneliness that all day had been so heavily oppressing her fled at sight of him. He drew her arm through his, nodding to Wildherne over his shoulder.

"I must capture her for five minutes: maybe we'll never return!"

She pressed her arm against his side and liked to feel his heart beating steadily through the stuff of his clothes.

Her love for him was growing apace. It was extraordinary how sheltered and protected he made her feel.

"Nervous?" he asked her as they passed out of the room.

"Not a bit. But where are you taking me?"

They had paused for a moment in a dimly lit alcove.

"First for this." He drew her to him, put his arms around her and kissed her on the lips. "I've longed to have a daughter—all my life—and now when at last I've got one I make the most of it. It had been almost too late, you know!"

She caught his hand, pressing it between both of hers.

"Oh!" she whispered. "Let me see you often, very often. There are going to be some things that will be difficult. I love you already so much. I think I could tell you anything."

"It's a compact," he answered, looking into her eyes. "We'll be together in everything.

"And now," he went on gaily, "this is the second reason I took you away!" He opened a door and led her into a little room, plastered so heavily with bright "marine" water-colour drawings that a large marble bust on the mantelpiece of Georgiana Duchess of Romney (1790-1822) looked extraordinarily solid and, beside so many waves and seahorses, astonishingly static. Beneath the bust, sitting very straight and stiff in a cloth tapestry chair, was a little old lady in a lace cap. This was Lady Anne Purefoy, nearly a hundred, thoroughly alive and interested in everything.

Janet had never met her before. She kissed her. The lace cap nodded approval. She was a very gentle old lady, and had a voice like a musical-box, very sweet and true but distant so that you must bend your head to listen. Janet sat down beside her, and the Duke, in his favourite position with his thick legs squarely spread and his hands behind his broad back, stood over them benevolently.

"I have to stay in here, my dear. All those people in there rather too much for me. I'm ninety-two. So many relations. Fatiguing. And so you will marry Wildherne and the family will carry on. Take care of the first year. That's the difficult one. Never been married myself, of course, but have watched others. You've a sensible face. I like your hair. Forgive a very old lady her impertinences. The Queen said to me once, "Anne, you'll be impertinent to the last"—and so I shall be, to the very last. Shan't I, Geoffrey?"

"I'll tell you that, Aunt Anne, on your hundred and fiftieth birthday," he answered her.

"Ugh," she gave a little sarcastic shrug. "Don't threaten me. Lived much too long already. This noisy, distracting, adorable world. But tell me a little about yourself, my dear. Are you happy?"

"Very happy, Lady Anne," Janet answered softly.

"That's right. You should be. Wildherne is a dear. Are you economical? Can you run a house?"

"I haven't had a great deal of experience. My sister and I have been alone in the world for some years."

"Ah, your sister. She's very beautiful, they tell me. Is she here to-night?"

"Yes."

"Someone must bring her to see me, Geoffrey. I love to look at pretty girls. And are you very modern, deny God, and laugh at the King and Queen? You've plenty of clothes on your back, I'm glad to see. Not that I'm against a little fun. We old Victorians weren't by half as dull as they make us out to have been. Not by half. And do you rush about everywhere in a motor car?"

Janet laughed. "All my friends think me very old-fashioned," she said. "I'm quite ordinary, Lady Anne—ordinary and slow."

"Well, I'm glad you are—so glad you're not clever. We were just as clever sixty years ago, but we didn't make such a hullaballoo about it. If Mr. Disraeli and Huxley and Mr. Gladstone (although I never liked him) weren't clever, I wonder what they were. Show me anyone as clever to-day. Lloyd George and the rest. However, that's what we old people are for ever doing, running down the present. I don't want to, I'm sure. I find it very amusing but transitory. Selfish too. In the old days we believed in something greater than ourselves. A little too much in earnest, perhaps, but we had our little jokes."

"I must be taking her back, Aunt Anne," the Duke said. "She's the heroine to-night, you know."

"So she is. So she is. I like her. I like her very much indeed. Kiss me, my dear. May God bless you and keep you and give you fine children worthy of their grandfather."

Her hot trembling hand rested for an instant on Janet's cool forehead.

Soon she was standing in the long drawing-room, the Duchess on one side of her, Wildherne on the other. This was not an official reception; they stood there casually as though accident had placed them, and yet in a moment it was official, as official as though it were a Court Drawing-Room.

And so, in its Purefoy world, it was. Yes, and further than that, in its section of England ruled by the Purefoys, Medleys, Chichesters and Darrants it had that significance, for the Duke and Duchess were King and Queen of that section and Janet bride of the Heir-Apparent.

She had not realised—she had had as yet no opportunity of realising—how immensely self-sufficient, self-important, and secure this world was. It was disregarded almost entirely by the Press of the day. Its house parties, receptions, journeys were scarcely recorded. The illustrated papers, the novels of the time, the scandals, the fashions had no concern with it. Any account of the England of the moment was preoccupied with a Post-War Society, apparently conscienceless, heartless, and creedless, and yet this Post-War Society was numerically minute and potentially inorganic compared with this unperturbed, resolved, static Society that, infinitely poorer of course than before the war, yet carried on its creeds, its ceremonies, its responsibilities precisely as though no other Society existed.

And it was into this Society that Janet was now irrevocably to be plunged! Yes, irrevocably. She could see as she faced them that they had claimed her for their own, that she belonged now utterly to them, not they to her, and that they had no doubt whatever that she was exceedingly fortunate to have been so chosen.

She caught the tone of it exactly from the Duchess. It was her luck that she should know all these people and that they should accept her so swiftly as one of themselves, and she knew now that it had been from the beginning the root of the Duchess's satisfaction, the foreknowledge that she would be so accepted.

One of her deepest impressions was of kindliness. On other casual visits either to Halkin Street or Lady Mossop's or Lady Blanche Chichester's or wherever, she had not been sure of that. She had been outside their world. And in the society of Rosalind's friends she had known that there was no kindliness at all. Camaraderie, perhaps, but always a horror of sentiment, emotion, and above all a preoccupation with self that insisted on freedom at all and every cost.

To-night again and again she caught that look of shy, almost diffident friendliness. There were more young people than she had expected, girls with whom she felt she could establish very pleasant relationships, but for the most part her new uncles, aunts, and cousins were elderly and, as Rosalind was surely somewhere confidently asserting, "too established for words."

No one was difficult to talk to. They evidently had no desire that you should be clever; Janet did not feel, as always with Rosalind's set, that she was two sentences behind and that everyone was aware of it.

One fact gradually emerged from the tangled confusion of words—her great fortune, they all felt, in having Wintersmoon for her home. Wintersmoon was the house in all England. What a tragedy that in these monstrous days of impossible taxes some of it must be closed, but perhaps, as times were better and we left the horrible war behind us, they would be able to throw it all open again. Wintersmoon ... Wintersmoon ... Wintersmoon ... with its history and stories and tradition and colour, with its great Oak and lovely Minstrels' Gallery and Queen Elizabeth's bed and the wing where Charles I. stayed for a whole fortnight before Edgehill, its three ghosts, and its Spanish Walk. She must indeed be too gloriously happy in the prospect of such a home!

"And you'll suit it, my dear," said old Clara Darrant, with her bushy eyebrows and high lace collar (it was said that she believed herself the reincarnation of Queen Elizabeth). "I can see that you are going to be just right for it. Dear Wildherne has chosen well."

She could see that there was something in her of which they all approved. What this was she did not know, but in the midst of all her preoccupation this private thought rather miserably attacked her—that Wildherne had seen just this same quality and had chosen her for that as you might choose a chair or a table to go into a certain room because it suited the Period!

And then his kindliness drove that thought away. Never before, in her knowledge of him, had he been so right, so exactly feeling for her and with her in all the twists and turns of her situation, and when, at long last, she could move away with him slowly to another part of the room, she smiled at him her gratitude.

"You're tired?" he asked.

"Yes, a little—naturally. But they are all kinder than kind. Wildherne, do you approve of me? Is everything all right?"

"Everything is perfect. They all like you so much. Father's eyes are shining with pride. And mother's telling the Bishop of London this very moment what a fortunate thing it is that I've shown so much wisdom...."

But it was odd with what an eagerness of discovery she saw, a moment later, Rachel Seddon. It was like coming home. The Duke, Rachel, Rosalind were the three in that house that evening who could make her feel that. Not Wildherne.

She caught Rachel's hand with an impetuosity unlike her accustomed gravity. Old John Beaminster, who was sitting on the little gilt sofa beside his niece, wondered. He had not seen Janet Grandison many times before, and never like this with her head up so finely, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed. Why, she was almost a beauty! The old man, a little a fish out of water to-night, the Beaminster world being even in these degenerate days much gayer than this Purefoy one, had just been murmuring to Rachel, "Damned lot of parsons here—I'm going to clear," and then, struck with the drama of Janet's presence, decided to stay on.

Rachel Seddon, looking more alien than usual in this so-English company, bent her dark eyes on her friend and then drew her close to her on the little sofa. "Janet, darling, you're such a success. I hear murmurs on every side of me: 'But isn't she charming? Just the wife for Wildherne. So quiet ...' Oh yes, you're a success. You're doing it all to perfection. My dear, if you'd only seen me at my coming-out ball years ago. Do you remember, Uncle John, how terrified I was and how kind you were to me? That was the night I fell in love with Roddy.... Ah dear! Tout passe. ... Tom's somewhere; have you seen him?"

No, Janet had not. Had Rachel been talking to Wildherne, because if not she must.

"Yes, we had a delightful time. I like him so much. I find that we think alike about almost everything, even about yourself. And his hair's such a nice colour. It would be a fortune to a woman. Ah! here's M. Brun. Do you know Miss Grandison? Janet, this is M. Felix Brun, one of my oldest friends, and the only man in Europe who knows anything about politics."

Little Brun was excited to-night. He had never before seen gathered together under the one roof so many of "the True English." Yes, in most of the other London houses to-day your companions might be of any European nationality, or at least American. But here, in what he called to John Beaminster "this rocky fastness," the English type was astounding. There was a foreign diplomat or two, but otherwise—all English. And, most amazing of all, not an American to be seen anywhere! Oh, but he was excited! And how odd they all were! So many clergymen in their black silk waistcoats and high white collars, so many old ladies, so many young ones without paint and powder, such dowdy clothes, and yet—something so fine and definite, something so unimaginative that it had all the clarity of a single-eyed vision.

Singled-eyed! That's what they were, with England right in the middle of the picture. No cheapness, no haste, and a pride that only the aristocracy of his own country could equal.

And now here was this tall, dark, plain girl about to marry that tall, fair, handsome man, ultimately with God's grace and the permission of the Bolsheviks to reign as queen of this Purefoy country. A nice girl but stupid, he fancied. Naïve at least. But then how naïf everyone around him looked to-night! English naïveté hiding perhaps deep subtleties. It was precisely of that that the clever people of other nations could never be sure. It was precisely of that that Brun could not to-night be sure. Was this great roomful as simple as it looked? On the whole, he believed not.

Janet was able to spare but little attention on M. Brun. Her eyes were roving everywhere for her sister. Never for an instant through all the evening's happenings had she forgotten her, but she had not been simply free to go to her. Now she was free and she would go. Then she saw her—slowly crossing the room with Wildherne. Janet knew instantly that things were going ill between them. She knew exactly that expression of Rosalind's when, her temper piqued, she was like a naughty insulting child. Wildherne's courteous patience was easy enough for anyone to see. All eyes were drawn to Rosalind as she passed. Her dress, or lack of it, the lovely movement of her body, the easy almost insolent gaze with which she honoured the room, it would have been strange had she passed unnoticed. Then Janet saw her eyes flash with relief. She broke away from Wildherne almost without a word and in a moment was speaking to a tall gaunt woman resembling a young friendly crocodile—Althea—Althea Bendersley, a great friend of Rosalind's, here to-night because she was a first cousin of Blanche Chichester's. They greeted one another with eager laughter and moved away. Janet's only too active imagination followed them into some corner where, eagerly ferocious, they would pull the party to flakes and shreds.

Wildherne seemed for an instant bewildered by her so precipitant desertion, then old Clara Darrant attacked him and he was attentive courtesy once more.

Ancient M. Brun was talking, but Janet did not listen. How could she ever have supposed that Rosalind would be happy in this world? She had been so eager to extricate Rosalind from the discomfort and unhappiness of their struggling poverty that she had not thought at all of the new life into which she was drawing her.

Her chief demand of Wildherne had been that Rosalind should share their home, but how could she have been so blind as to suppose that Rosalind would for a moment do so? She had lost Rosalind by this step that she had taken, lost her, not secured her.

A desperate restlessness possessed her.

"Excuse me, M. Brun, but I must find my sister. Rachel, I'll be back in a moment. I simply haven't set eyes on Rosalind all the evening."

"I saw her with Althea Bendersley a moment ago," Rachel said. Had Rachel seen Rosalind and Wildherne together? Rachel saw so much. It was as though the Slav part of her gave her some kind of second sight. She knew so constantly just what Janet was feeling, but then this barrier of her dislike of Rosalind came up between them and separated them. Janet knew that Rachel was feeling that now—distrust, dislike that would quickly be hatred if Rosalind injured her adored Tom.

Janet moved away, unhappiness in her heart. The people around her were all in an instant ghosts to her. Not one of them save the Duke belonged to her. She wanted him with a sudden desperate need that was only, as she well knew, the precursor of many future needs. But she did not see him. The room thickened and darkened around her. She had made some horrible mistake. She would be punished all her life because she was selling herself, body and soul, for comfort. That it was not her comfort made no difference; and surely she saw clearly enough to-night that it would not be Rosalind's comfort. Why had she done this thing? What crazy impulse had driven her? The consciousness of her friendship with Wildherne had left her. Friendship when he was madly in love with another woman?

She looked everywhere for her sister; then found herself face to face with the very last human being whom at that distracted moment she wished to encounter, the Duchess's protégée, Caroline Marsh. The girl was standing against the wall by herself. She looked plain and awkward in her white dress, her pince-nez ill-fitting so that with a perpetual nervous movement she was for ever pushing them back against her eyes.

At the sight of her lonely silent figure Janet's heart went out to her.

"Oh, Miss Marsh," she said, holding out her hand and smiling, "how are you? I do hope you are enjoying yourself."

"Oh yes, thank you, Miss Grandison," with great nervousness. "It's lovely, isn't it? I'm sure you ought to be very happy, Miss Grandison, seeing everyone so pleased. I'm sure it's a great occasion. And Lord Poole's been so kind. He brought me a cup of tea. I wouldn't have bothered him for the world, but he is so thoughtful, always thinking of others."

"Let's sit down for a moment," said Janet, "here on this little sofa. You must have seen many friends here this evening."

"Well, Miss Grandison, friends ... one can't expect to have many of them, can one? But acquaintances, oh yes, ever so many! Trying to help the Duchess as I do of course I meet a lot of people. And may I ask when the day for the wedding is fixed? Oh, I do hope you don't think me impertient."

"Of course not. The wedding will be towards the end of April, I expect. No one likes being married in May, although of course it's only a superstition."

"Silly, isn't it? Oh, I do think superstitions are very foolish, don't you? And if I may say so your sister's looking perfectly lovely to-night. Quite a vision! Everybody's been commenting on it. Mr. Pomeroy thinks her lovely too. Don't you think Mr. Pomeroy's a delightful gentleman, Miss Grandison?"

"Well, really," Janet answered, laughing, "I have seen so little of him so far."

"Oh, I think he's splendid! Everything he does is so fine. The Duchess wouldn't know how to get on without him, she wouldn't indeed! It just does one good to be near him."

And then Janet realised a strange thing. This plain, awkward, common girl, whom, as she had fancied, she had pleased by noticing, disliked her—yes, disliked her intensely. She did not know how she was aware of this, but she was quite certain of it. It emanated from the girl like a faint but unmistakable perfume. What was it? Jealousy? Or fear? Or hurt vanity? Had Janet done or said something?

Absurd how this knowledge added to her depression. This girl looked upon her as an invader, and there would be others, perhaps many others, who would do the same.

She got up.

"We must be friends," she said, smiling. "There are many things that will be difficult for me at first. I do hope you will help me sometimes."

Miss Marsh got up awkwardly, nervously pushing at her pince-nez.

"That's very kind of you, Miss Grandison. Of course if I can be of any assistance to you in any way——"

Mr. Pomeroy appeared, very elegant, very urbane. He had friends whom he wished to introduce, and then there were others. But people were leaving. Soon, ah soon, she would be able to escape. Wildherne found her, and together they moved into the next room.

Together Rosalind and she were in a cab. She was so tired that life—her life, all life, any life—jumped up and down before her like a Jack-in-the-Box. Rosalind said not a word.

They were in their little sitting-room. As Janet turned towards her bedroom Rosalind cried:

"Janet, how awful!"

Janet stayed. "Awful! What do you mean?"

"This evening—the people—everything."

"Oh, don't now, Rosalind. I'm too tired to listen. Make your clever criticisms in the morning."

But Rosalind flung her arms around her sister's neck, keeping her.

"Listen, dear. I know you're tired now. I won't be long. But if ever I was serious in my life, I am now. Janet, you've got to give it up. You've got to tell him to-morrow that you can't marry him. Never mind if they talk. Never mind if we're poor. We'll go abroad together somewhere—Mentone or somewhere—it will be after the season soon and cheap. Anything—only you've got to give it up! You can't go on with it."

Janet dragged herself from her sister's embrace.

"Rosalind, are you mad? What on earth do you mean?"

"I mean what I say. You've got to give it up, all of it. You're doing it for me, and you can't make that sacrifice. I won't let you. They are dreadful, these people—quite dreadful. You'll run away from them in a week. Why, they're awful! They haven't an idea in their heads! They're pompous and stupid and impossible. And you don't love him, not a bit. You're bored with him already, and as for that idiot his mother——"

"Stop, Rosalind!" Janet's nerves, already strained to the thinnest thread, snapped. "How dare you? I should have thought it would be enough that on this evening, when it was so important to me, you shouldn't take the least little bit of trouble and should be rude to everybody. But it isn't. Have you no sense of anything decent? Can't you see anything except your own selfishness and your own vanity? Remember, now and always, they are my people, and when you laugh at them you laugh at me!"

"Oh well, then"—Rosalind moved to her room—"if they are yours they are not mine, and, thank God, never will be!"

And she banged her door behind her.