"Is it really necessary for you to live here? She would
be much happier if you went back."
"I'm not sure of that."
"But I am, from what she says in her letters, and I should have
thought that you, too, would prefer it to this life."
He glanced round the room. Olga looked vexed, and spoke with a note
of irony.
"My tastes are unaccountable, I'm afraid. You, no doubt, find it
difficult to understand them. So does my cousin Irene. You have
heard that she is going to be married?"
Piers, surprised at her change of tone, regarded her fixedly, until
she reddened and her eyes fell.
"Is the engagement announced, then?"
"I should think so; but I'm not much in the way of hearing
fashionable gossip."
Still Piers regarded her; still her cheeks kept their colour, and
her eyes refused to meet his.
"I see I have offended you," he said quietly. "I'm very sorry. Of
course I went too far in speaking like that of the life you have
chosen. I had no righ----"
"Nonsense! If you mustn't tell me what you think, who may?"
Again the change was so sudden, this time from coldness to smiling
familiarity, that Piers felt embarrassed.
"The fact is," Olga pursued, with a careless air, "I don't think I
shall go on with this much longer. If you said what you have in your
mind, that I should never be any good as an artist, you would be
quite right. I haven't had the proper training; it'll all come to
nothing.
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