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Rh quite horrible. And she received these very plain remarks with a rather touching gentleness.

"It was disgusting of me, Madge," she said. "I ask your pardon."

Lady Heron had in a very notable degree the bigness of nature which Lucia so utterly lacked. And though she did not withdraw or repent of a single word she had said, she did not mean to quarrel with Lucia of her own initiative.

"My dear, of course you have it," she said. "And now, what shall we do, as we are on our feet? If we are to see anything of our play we must go, or we shall not be in time even for the fall of the curtain, which is very often the best thing that happens in an English play, and it would be a pity to miss it. But if we don't go I will send my motor away, and tell it to come back later."

"Oh, let us stop at home," said Lucia. "I want to talk to you. Somehow I am nervous and uneasy. I don't know if I have cause for it or not."

The motor was sent away, and the two went into Lucia's private sitting-room. Madge established herself near the fire, but Lucia stood in front of it a little while in silence.

"Sometimes I think Maud knows," she said at length.

"Knows what? How much?" said Madge. "Whatever Maud knows, I know nothing."

"I think she knows that Charlie and I are in love with each other," said Lucia.

"Why do you think so?"

"I can hardly say. Sometimes, if you know a person very well, as I know Maud, you have intuitions which you cannot quite explain. But let me try. I am sure she is unhappy about something, and I can think of nothing in the world that could make her unhappy except that."

"But she has said nothing?"

"No, but she looks—I can't tell you what she looks like. She looks unhappy, and oh, so dreadfully sorry, and I feel that she is hoping I shall say something to her. And Charlie sees it too; it makes us both wretched!"

It made them both wretched! The egoism of this was colossal. There was something almost sublime about it.

"All, if you are right, there is only one thing to be done," said Madge quickly. "You must give it all up at once. It is too perilous; that is the way smashes come. And we can't afford that you should go smash, dear Lucia; you are too precious."