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"But it certainly looks like it. You do nothing but talk about her." Carron roused himself with an effort from the treadmill line of thought that had tortured him ever since Brigit's engagement. "My dear Tony, you are absurd. You know perfectly well that I have never loved any woman but you.
If I had read her letter instead of Brigit's I might have gone to my well-earned rest without a qualm. "Dear Lord Ernest," Miss Gilder addressed me, in a handwriting which to any "expert" would reveal some originality, more pride, still more conscientiousness, any amount of self-will, and singularly little conceit. An odd combination! But the Gilded Rose is that.
The delight of being purely self-absorbed is very great and intoxicating to those who are constantly either by desire or the force of circumstances unselfish. A faint flush swept into Brigit's face under the effect of an experience so novel. Their twofold consciousness had all the pathos of self-effacement, and all the thrill of satisfied egoism.
Brigit's one excuse was her mistaken assumption that her mother had believed Carron's story, and when Lady Kingsmead had shrieked out everything else that she thought might hurt her daughter, she added, "I believed in you, you little brute, though he said he saw you there. I might have known he wouldn't have dared to make up such a tale." Brigit, who had stood quite still, now spoke.
When at last Brigit's arraignment ceased, Lady Kingsmead's turn came, and more feebly, less effectively, but to the best of her powers, she gave back abuse for abuse. It was not a pleasant sight. Unbridled rage never is, even when in a good cause, and these two undisciplined women had lost all dignity and said very bad things to each other.
She wore it round her neck every day therefore the chamois-skin bag on the other bed must be Brigit's. I told myself that in it she probably kept her pathetic store of money, hidden under her bodice by day, her pillow by night; and beholding this intimate souvenir of my childhood's friend, my heart yearned over her. "Too late to rouse them up now," said Anthony.
It was still too early for lunch, so they walked down to the pier, where they saw several yachts and pleasure-boats at anchor in the harbour, and the New Forest greenly outlined in the distance. These were the things which engraved themselves on Brigit's mind.
Eventually I decided that silence would help the cause; and in thus making up my mind I was far from guessing that my own fate and Monny's and Anthony's and Brigit's hung also on that insignificant decision. I was thankful that Mrs.
"He insults me in the most abominable way, the vile little beast, and then you pet him. Bah! mother, you do really make me ill!" Lady Kingsmead turned, amazed. "You are off your head, too! Can't you see he is ill?" But Brigit's anger, nursed all during the drive home, burst out afresh.
Tommy turned to the kitten and talked artless nonsense to it to fill up the pause that followed, and Lady Kingsmead powdered her nose with a bit of chamois skin that lived in a silver box full of Fuller's earth under the chaise-longue pillows. "Glad Brigit's coming?" asked Tommy, turning with appalling suddenness to Carron, whose hatred for him increased tenfold as he tried to answer carelessly.
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