THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS
409
"Still, she did marry rather young."
"Oh, she didn't do
that.
I did it for her. I had to."
And dropping her voice as she leaned intimately closer she be–
gan to explain why.
"Her father's in the government, you know, and when Connie
was still in school there were some stupid charges against him–
bribery, and using up the public funds, and having his daughter on
the government payroll although she was just a schoolgirl who had
never been inside an office.
It
was all just envious talk, of course,
and soon blew over: you know how politicians love to play pranks
on each other, they're such rogues. I never paid the matter any
attention myself in spite of all the usual fuss the newspapers made.
But the more sensational ones had carried Connie's picture as the
girl who was gypping the public of its money so she could study in
an expensive exclusive private school-just their usual brutal vul–
garity, you can see-but poor Connie seems to have been upset. She
suddenly turned up at home looking haunted.
" I was at my dressing table, I remember, having my nails man–
icured in a hurry-I was going out somewhere and I was late–
and of course I felt a bit annoyed as well as surprised when Connie
popped up in the room. She was a boarder in that school and came
home only on Sundays, but it wasn't a Sunday, and it was after
dark too. But Connie would explain nothing with the maid in the
room. To humor her, I sent the maid away; but to keep
everythin~
casual, I went right on doing my face while the girl raved. She said
she had run away from school and didn't ever want to go back–
that she absolutely refused to be educated on 'stolen money.'
Imagine.
I nearly swallowed my lipstick. I turned around on the stool to look
at her: she was in that dreadful uniform of theirs, with clamps on
her teeth and her hair sticking damply down her neck like an old
mop. For a moment I was tempted to laugh at the little goose. But
I made her sit down, and talked it over very solemnly with her, al–
though I knew I was going to be ages late to wherever it was I
was going.
"I told her that people who had our advantages must expect to
be
envied and reviled by people who were not so fortunate; and that
(Continued on page
452)
