Dear me!"
The amount of malice, envy and all uncharitableness which Lucia managed
to put into this quite unrehearsed speech was positively amazing. She
had not thought it over beforehand for a moment; it came out with the
august spontaneity of lightning leaping from a cloud. Not till that
moment had Georgie guessed at a tithe of all that Olga had felt so
certain about, and a double emotion took hold of him. He was immensely
sorry for Lucia, never having conjectured how she must have suffered
before she attained to so superb a sourness, and he adored the
intuition that had guessed it and wanted to sweeten it.
The outburst was not quite over yet, though Lucia felt distinctly
better.
"And you, Georgie," she said, "though I'm sure we are such strangers
that I ought to call you Mr Pillson, what have you been doing? Playing
Miss Bracely's accompaniments, and sewing wedding-dresses all day, and
raising spooks all night? Yes."
Lucia had caught this "Yes" from Lady Ambermere, having found it
peculiarly obnoxious. You laid down a proposition, or asked a question,
and then confirmed it yourself.
"And Mr Cortese," she said, "is he still roaring out his marvellous
English and Italian? Yes. What a full life you lead, Georgie. I suppose
you have no time for your painting now."
This was not a bow drawn at a venture, for she had seen Georgie come
out of Old Place with his paint-box and drawing-board, but this direct
attack on him did not lessen the power of the "sweet charity" which had
sent him here.
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