“I think my mind really made itself up the moment I saw Arsenio. The rest was—tactics! I mustn’t see Waldo; I invented excuses. Waldo mustn’t see Arsenio—that at all costs! He always suspected Arsenio, and Arsenio might give it away—you know his malicious little airs of triumph when he scores! You picture me as miserable? No! I was fearful, terrified. But I was irrepressibly excited—and at last happy. My doubt was done and ended.” “You were not ashamed?” I ventured. “Yes, I was ashamed too—because of Aunt Bertha and Sir Paget. Because of them, much more than because of Waldo. They loved me; they had taken me to be, as it were, their daughter. Between Waldo and Arsenio it had always been a fight—yes, from that first day at Cragsfoot. I was the prize! But in a way I was also just a spectator. I mean—in the end I couldn’t help which won; something quite out of my power to control had to decide that. And that something never had any doubt. How could I go against everything that was real in me?” “I think you are rather primitive,” I said. “It seems to you a fight between the males. You await the issue. Well—and what’s happened? I hope things are—flourishing now?” She looked at me with one of her slow-dawning smiles; evidently, for some reason, she was amused at me, or at the question which I had put. “I’ve spent the greater part of the waking hours of three days with you, Julius. I’ve walked, lunched, and dined with you. I’ve talked to you interminably. You must have looked at me sometimes, haven’t you?” “I’ve looked at you, to tell the truth, a great deal.” “And you’ve noticed nothing peculiar?” “I shouldn’t use the word ‘peculiar’ to describe what I’ve noticed.” “Not, for instance, that I’ve always worn the same frock?” She was leaning her elbows on the table now, her chin resting between her hands. “And what that means to a charming woman—oh, we agreed on that!—invited out by a fine figure of a man——! And yet you ask if things are flourishing!” “By Jove, I believe you have! It’s a very pretty frock, Lucinda. No, but really it is!” “It’s an old friend—and my only one. So let’s speak no evil of it.” Yet she did speak evil of the poor frock; she whispered, “Oh, how I hate it, hate it, this old frock!” She gave a little laugh. “If it came my way, I wonder whether I could resist splendor! Guilty splendor!” “Didn’t poor old Waldo present himself to you—oddly, I must say—rather in that light? And you resisted!” “I’ve changed. You’re talking to a different woman—different from the girl I’ve been boring you about. The girl I’ve been boring you about wouldn’t—couldn’t—marry Waldo with Arsenio there; I—the I that am—could and, I think, would.” “Because of your old friend here?” I touched lightly the sleeve of her gown. “For what it has meant, and does mean—oh, and for itself too! I’m no heroine. Primitive women love finery too.”