Part 12 (1/2)
The Squire went away vaguely dissatisfied with himself, but took comfort in the thought that women didn't understand these things.
CHAPTER II
JOAN AND NANCY
”My sweet old Joan, tell me all about it.”
Joan buried her fair head in Virginia's skirts and burst into tears.
She was sitting on the rug in front of the fire by Virginia's side, in the gloaming.
Virginia put her slim hand on to her shoulder, and caressed her lightly. ”It's too bad,” she said gently, with her soft, hardly distinguishable American intonation.
”I'm such a fool,” said Joan. ”I don't know what I want. I don't want anything.”
She dried her eyes, but still kept her head on Virginia's knee, and put up her hand to give Virginia's a little squeeze. It was comforting to be with her, looking into the fire.
”It's about John Spence, isn't it, dear?” Virginia asked.
”I'm a fool,” said Joan again. ”I don't like him as much as I used to.”
”Is that why you're a fool?” asked Virginia with a little laugh.
”No,” said Joan seriously. ”For caring about things changing, because one is grown up. I used to think it would be nothing but bliss to be grown up. Now I wish Nancy and I were little girls again. We used to be very happy together. We always talked about everything, it didn't matter what it was.”
”And now you don't. You don't talk about John Spence.”
Joan's tears flowed afresh. ”I don't want to talk about it, Virginia,”
she said. ”I am sure you would never understand what I feel. Whatever I said you would think I meant something else; and I don't a bit. I don't mind his liking Nancy best. I don't want him to like me more than he does.”
”Oh, my darling girl! I think I understand it all better than you do yourself. You are unhappy, and you don't know why.”
”Then tell me why.”
”Well, to begin with, you are just a little jealous.”
”Oh, Virginia! And you said you understood!”
”You are jealous, just as you would be if d.i.c.k were suddenly to show that he liked Nancy better than you.”
”We used to have such fun together, all three of us. It never entered the heads of either of us to think which he liked the best. He liked us both just the same. Why couldn't it go on like that? I've done nothing. It was after I came back from that horrid Brummels. He didn't like my going there--not that it had anything to do with him.
He was just like father about it, and tried to make out that it had altered me. It hadn't altered me at all. I was just the same as I had always been. It was he that had altered.”
”Can't you see, little girl, that it couldn't always go on as it used to?”
”Why not?”
”How can a man fall in love with two girls at once? He must choose one of them, or neither.”
”I didn't want him to fall in love with me,” said Joan quickly. ”I am not in love with him. That's why it's so difficult to say anything.
If I'm unhappy, it looks as if I must be.”