"That temptation, at least, you had the fortitude to resist," I said.
She wrinkled her nose and pouted. "Me no likee. There are such millions of things I simply can't do without, and David can't give them me, and if he could he wouldn't. He is so serious, poor lamb! And it's always about the wrong things. After all, George, what _does_ matter in life? It's frightfully serious to be ugly, or grow old, or not to know how to dress--I'm all right there at present, and perhaps I shan't mind when the time comes and I get all skinny and lined. It'll be frightfully serious if Lady Knightrider doesn't ask me up for the Northern Meeting, or if Daddy doesn't raise my allowance--I told you I was broke, didn't I? Well, I am. In the meantime----" She broke off and hummed two bars of a waltz. "Life _is_ good, George."
"We were discussing Raney," I reminded her.
"It is an old habit of yours. What part does he play in your tragedy?"
"Tragedy?" she echoed, not altogether displeased at the choice of word.
"It'll be a tragedy before you've played it out," I told her.
She was quite thoughtful for a moment or two, and when she spoke again I could see her discretion obviously declining a challenge that her curiosity longed to take up.
"David's perfectly free to do whatever he likes," she answered, a shade combatively. "I'm not going to decide anything for the present; life's far too much fun, and we've got all eternity before us. _He's_ in no hurry either."
"I thought he was in treaty for that moorland cottage," I said.
"Oh, that was merely a passing brain-storm. I told him the life I was leading, and he thought it over and decided to let me have my fling--so considerate of him!--and when I'm tired of vanities, if neither of us has found anyone better and either of us has got any money, _v'là tout_!"
With an exquisite wave of her hand she dismissed the subject and invited me to admire her dress, which was more transparent than most but otherwise not remarkable.
"Why don't you both have the honesty to admit you've made a mistake?" I asked.
She gazed across the room with her head on one side.
"I'll tell you some day," she promised, and with that the subject finally dropped.
I wrote that day to Oxford--knowing no other address--to ask O'Rane to stay with me in Ireland. After considerable delay and the dispatch of a reply-paid telegram I received an answer dated from Melton.