“You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'm so stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this hole-and-corner work. You've got rid of Cecil — well and good, and I'm thankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not announce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?”

“It's only for a few days.”

“But why at all?”

Lucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quite easy to say, “Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if he hears I've given up Cecil may begin again” — quite easy, and it had the incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. She disliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that king of terrors —