"I _have_ cared for him--a little--from the very first.... I am not--fitted for him--in many ways."
"I am _not_! I care for him unselfishly. I don't know why I should, but I do; and he ought not to marry me even if he--ever--wished to."
"You are talking wildly, darling! _You_--not good enough for _him_! What a silly----"
"Not good enough, I tell you!" repeated the girl fiercely. "I care too much for what he finds agreeable--all this ease and relaxation.... I wish I were different. I wish I could arouse him; I'd do it. I'd do it somehow--I'd do it now if I could----"
She caught her breath, stood perfectly motionless a moment, then Silvette felt her tremble slightly.
After a while she lifted her head from her sister's shoulder.
"I _am_ going to do what I can for him," she said excitedly. "I am going to see what can be done to arouse the man in him. All he needs is the initial shock--a--a stinging one."
"What do you mean? If there was anything in him, the shock of the firm's failure would have brought it out."
"It was not enough. It was only the loss of money! There are worse things----"
But Diana only kissed her sister, laughing, flushed, excited, and, extending her arm, turned off the light, plunging the room and her brilliant cheeks in darkness.
Edgerton and Christine, ensconced in the corners of a window seat, and partly visible through the leaded panes, were too deeply absorbed in each other to be aware of the curious glances shot toward them from the tennis court outside, where Silvette, Colonel Curmew, Mrs. Lorrimore, and Jack Rivett were playing, while Diana, perched aloft with her knitting in the umpire's seat, resolutely ignored the spectacle in the window, which was plainer to her than to anybody else.
Perfectly oblivious to any extraneous interest they aroused, sitting almost nose to nose and knee to knee in the deep recess, Christine and Edgerton remained in close consultation, preoccupied, possibly indifferent, to view or comment. Christine bent forward, and drew a carnation through his buttonhole, saying:
"Anyway, you are a perfect dear, Jim Edgerton. Somehow or other, I haven't any blushes for what I've taken so many weeks to tell you. I never thought I could know anybody well enough to say such a thing to, but you _are_ different; there's nobody like you, Jim. Do you wonder I adore you?"