They had
thought--she and Peppino--of having a little holiday on the Riviera,
but anyhow they would put if off till after Christmas. Georgie's mouth
was full of crashing toast at the moment, and he could only shake his
head. But as soon as the toast could be swallowed, he made the usual
reply with great fervour.
Georgie was hardly at all complacent when he walked home afterwards,
and thought how extremely good-natured he had been, for he could not
but feel that this marvellous forbearance was a sort of mistletoe
growth on him, quite foreign really to his nature. Never before had
Lucia showed so shrewish and venomous a temper; he had not thought her
capable of it. For the gracious queen, there was substituted a
snarling fish-wife, but then as Georgie calmly pursued the pacific
mission of comfort to which Olga had ordained him, how the fish-wife's
wrinkles had been smoothed out, and the asps withered from her tongue.
Had his imagination ever pictured Lucia saying such things to him, it
would have supplied him with no sequel but a complete severance of
relations between them. Instead of that he had consulted her and
truckled to her: truckled: yes, he had truckled, and he was astonished
at himself. Why had he truckled? And the beautiful mouth and kindly
eyes of Olga supplied the answer. Certainly he must drop in at once,
and tell her the result of the mission.
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