Part 41 (1/2)
I scribbled, ”Yes,” on the saood night to oing Peter was standing in the front hall and tookhe would wait for me round the corner while I had ht and I felt overpoweringly tired My beautiful rival opened the front door to me and I followed her silently up to her bedroo each other The rooe and dark but for a row of candles on the hts each side of a silver pier-glass There was a table near eneral smell of scent and flowers I looked at her in her blue satin nightgown and saw that she had been crying
”It is kind of you to have come,” she said, ”and I daresay you knohy I wanted to see you to-night”
MARGOT: ”No, I don't; I haven't the faintest idea!”
THE LADY (LOOKING RATHER EMBARRassED, BUT AFTER A MOMENT'S PAUSE): ”I want you to tellentry: she had sent for me to tell her about Peter Flower and not myself; but why should I tell her about either of us? I had never spoken ofto my mother and my three friends--Con Manners, Frances Horner, and Etty Desborough--and people had ceased speaking to er and discussto tell She answered by saying she had met so many people who cared for me that she felt she almost knew me, to which I replied:
”In that case, why talk about me?”
THE LADY: ”But some people care for both of us”
MARGOT (RATHER COLDLY): ”I daresay”
THE LADY: ”Don't be hard, I want to know if you love Peter FlowerDo you intend to marry him?”
The question had come then: this terrible question which my ot to be answered nowand to a stranger?
With a determined effort to control ed to beto marry Peter?”
MARGOT: ”I have never told him I would”
THE LADY (VERY SLOWLY): ”Remember, my life is bound up in your answer ”
Her words see forith her eyes fastened on mine and her hands clasped between her knees
”If you don't love hih to marry him, why don't you leave him alone?” she said ”Why do you keep him bound to you? Why don't you set him free?”
MARGOT: ”He is free to love whom he likes; I don't keep him, but I won't share him”
THE LADY: ”You don't love him, but you want to keep him; that is pure selfishness and vanity”
MARGOT: ”Not at all! I would give him up to-morrow and have told him so a thousand times, if he would marry; but he is not in a position to ! His debts have just been paid by God knoho--some woman, I suppose!--and you are rich yourself What is there to hinder you fro hi about I don't believe you would understand even if I were to explain it to you”
THE LADY: ”If you were really in love you could not be so critical and censorious”