“But of course you wouldn’t remember me,” she was saying. “My name is Viner–Sophy Viner.”
Not remember her? But of course he did! He was genuinely sure of it now. “You’re Mrs. Murrett’s niece,” he declared.
She shook her head. “No; not even that. Only her reader.”
“Her reader? Do you mean to say she ever reads?”
Miss Viner enjoyed his wonder. “Dear, no! But I wrote notes, and made up the visiting-book, and walked the dogs, and saw bores for her.”
Darrow groaned. “That must have been rather bad!”
“Yes; but nothing like as bad as being her niece.”
“That I can well believe. I’m glad to hear,” he added, “that you put it all in the past tense.”
She seemed to droop a little at the allusion; then she lifted her chin with a jerk of defiance. “Yes. All is at an end between us. We’ve just parted in tears–but not in silence!”
“Just parted? Do you mean to say you’ve been there all this time?”
“Ever since you used to come there to see Lady Ulrica? Does it seem to you so awfully long ago?”
The unexpectedness of the thrust–as well as its doubtful taste–chilled his growing enjoyment of her chatter. He had really been getting to like her–had recovered, under the candid approval of her eye, his usual sense of being a personable young man, with all the privileges pertaining to the state, instead of the anonymous rag of humanity he had felt himself in the crowd on the pier. It annoyed him, at that particular moment, to be reminded that naturalness is not always consonant with taste.
She seemed to guess his thought. “You don’t like my saying that you came for Lady Ulrica?” she asked, leaning over the table to pour herself a second cup of tea.
He liked her quickness, at any rate. “It’s better,” he laughed, “than your thinking I came for Mrs. Murrett!”
“Oh, we never thought anybody came for Mrs. Murrett! It was always for something else: the music, or the cook–when there was a good one–or the other people; generally ONE of the other people.”
“I see.”
She was amusing, and that, in his present mood, was more to his purpose than the exact shade of her taste. It was odd, too, to discover suddenly that the blurred tapestry of Mrs. Murrett’s background had all the while been alive and full of eyes. Now, with a pair of them looking into his, he was conscious of a queer reversal of perspective.
“Who were the ‘we’? Were you a cloud of witnesses?”
“There were a good many of us.” She smiled. “Let me see– who was there in your time? Mrs. Bolt–and Mademoiselle–and Professor Didymus and the Polish Countess. Don’t you remember the Polish Countess? She crystal-gazed, and played accompaniments, and Mrs. Murrett chucked her because Mrs. Didymus accused her of hypnotizing the Professor. But of course you don’t remember. We were all invisible to you; but we could see. And we all used to wonder about you—-”
Again Darrow felt a redness in the temples. “What about me?”
“Well–whether it was you or she who…”
He winced, but hid his disapproval. It made the time pass to listen to her.
“And what, if one may ask, was your conclusion?”
“Well, Mrs. Bolt and Mademoiselle and the Countess naturally thought it was she; but Professor Didymus and Jimmy Brance–especially Jimmy—-”
“Just a moment: who on earth is Jimmy Brance?”
She exclaimed in wonder: “You were absorbed–not to remember Jimmy Brance! He must have been right about you, after all.” She let her amused scrutiny dwell on him. “But how could you? She was false from head to foot!”
“False—-?” In spite of time and satiety, the male instinct of ownership rose up and repudiated the charge.
Miss Viner caught his look and laughed. “Oh, I only meant externally! You see, she often used to come to my room after tennis, or to touch up in the evenings, when they were going on; and I assure you she took apart like a puzzle. In fact I used to say to Jimmy–just to make him wild–:’I’ll bet you anything you like there’s nothing wrong, because I know she’d never dare un–‘” She broke the word in two, and her quick blush made her face like a shallow-petalled rose shading to the deeper pink of the centre.