The Edwardians Read Online Free Page A

people!”
    The two friends were both highly delighted. Little incidents like this added a spice to life.
    Lady Roehampton carefully tore out the treacherous sheet. “There’s no fire,” she said laughing; “for the moment I’ll lock it up in my writing case. I daresay I’ll find some means of destroying it safely tomorrow.” Lucy laughed too, and agreed, knowing well that Lady Roehampton had no intention whatever of destroying it. She might never use it, but on the other hand it might be useful. “But meanwhile is it safe?” asked Lucy. “You’re sure your maid hasn’t a key of your writing case? Servants are so unscrupulous, one can’t trust them a yard. However long they have been with one,—even if one looks on them as old friends,—one never knows when they will turn nasty. You’re sure you hadn’t better give it to me?”
    Lucy expected no answer to this, and Lady Roehampton gave none. That was consistent with her usual manner. She had a way of suddenly dropping a subject; it was a trick she had often found convenient, and since she enjoyed all the assurance of a beautiful woman, she was able always to impose her own wishes upon her audience. So now she could abandon the subject of the letter, and revert to Sebastian, who had aroused her interest: “That dark romantic boy of yours, Lucy,—tell me about him. When does he leave Oxford? Is he going into the Guards?” Lucy was never reluctant to talk about Sebastian; moreover, Lady Roehampton had no son, only a daughter of whom she was reputed jealous. “My dark romantic boy, Sylvia! how absurd you are, he’s only an untidy schoolboy,—a colt, I tell him,—I hope he won’t get spoilt, if women like you take too much notice of him. He’s a nice boy, I admit, though he’s apt to be moody.”
    â€œBut that’s his charm, my dear Lucy: Sebastian sulky is irresistible. Promise me you will never ruin him by persuading him to appear good-tempered.” “How perverse you are, Sylvia; I believe you really like people to be disagreeable. So that you can win them round. You would like Sebastian to snarl at you for half an hour, if at the end of forty minutes you were sure of having him at your feet.” “What nonsense you talk, Lucy; I knew Sebastian in his cradle. But you needn’t shut your eyes to the fact that he will have great attraction for women. That casual, though charming manner of his. . . . I doubt if he knows so much as my name.” “My dear Sylvia, you are one of his favourites; when I tell him you are coming, he says, Thank goodness for that.” “That means,” said Lady Roehampton, gratified at having caught the fish for which she was angling, “he is bored by most of our friends.” “Worse than that, Sylvia,” said Lucy, settling down to a grievance, “sometimes I think he really dislikes them. He says such sarcastic things,—quite unlike a boy. Cutting things. They make me quite uncomfortable. At other times he seems to enjoy himself. I can’t make him out.”
“Adolescence,” said Sylvia, blowing a long thread of smoke from her cigarette, for although she never smoked in public she could enjoy a cigarette in the privacy of her bedroom. “If I could really think that!” sighed Lucy; “if I could be sure he was going to turn out all right! It’s a great responsibility, Sylvia.” “You could always marry again, Lucy,” said Lady Roehampton, looking at her friend. “Yes,” said Lucy, instantly on her guard, “I could, but I prefer keeping my difficulties to myself, on the whole. I am quite prepared to run Chevron for Sebastian until he marries. But, Sylvia, we must dress.” “Dinner at half-past eight?” “Dinner at half-past eight. What are you going to put on? The Nattier-blue taffeta? I always think you look better in