Page:Lolly Willowes - 1926.djvu/233

 "I had been invited to tea," said Pandora rather primly.

"Yes, and I'd forgotten it, and gone out for a walk. Pandora, if I'd had my deserts, you would have scorned me, and left me to perish. Pandora, I shall never forget your magnanimous way of behaving. That was what did it really. One has to offer marriage to a young woman who has picked dead wasps out of one's armpit."

Laura had never seen Titus so excited. His face was flushed, his voice was loud, the pupils of his eyes were extraordinarily dilated. But how much of this was due to love and how much to wasps and witchcraft it was impossible to say. And was Pandora part of the witchcraft too, a sort of queen wasp whose sting was mortal balm? Why should Titus offer her marriage? Why should Pandora accept it? They had always been such friends.

Laura turned to the girl to see how she was taking it. Pandora's smooth cheeks and smooth lappets of black hair seemed to shed calm like an unwavering beam of moonlight. But at Laura's good wishes she started, and began nervously to counter them with explanations and