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Mr. Satterthwaite cleared his throat.
“I fancy he—er—thought it best.”
Egg stared at him piercingly.
“Do you mean—because of me?”
“Well—something of the kind, perhaps.”
“And so he’s legged it. I suppose I did show my hand a bit plainly…Men do hate being chased, don’t they? Mums is right, after all…You’ve no idea how sweet she is when she talks about men. Always in the third person—so Victorian and polite. ‘A man hates being run after; a girl should always let the man make the running.’ Don’t you think it’s a sweet expression—make the running? Sounds the opposite of what it means. Actually that’s just what Charles has done—made the running. He’s running away from me. He’s afraid. And the devil of it is, I can’t go after him. If I did I suppose he’d take a boat to the wilds of Africa or somewhere.”
“Hermione,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, “are you serious about Sir Charles?”
The girl flung him an impatient glance.
“Of course I am.”
“What about Oliver Manders?”
Egg dismissed Oliver Manders with an impatient whisk of the head. She was following out a train of thought of her own.
“Do you think I might write to him? Nothing alarming. Just chatty girlish stuff…you know, put him at his ease, so that he’d get over his scare?”
She frowned.
“What a fool I’ve been. Mums would have managed it much better. They knew how to do the trick, those Victorians. All blushing retreat. I’ve been all wrong about it. I actually thought he needed encouraging. He seemed—well, he seemed to need a bit of help. Tell me,” she turned abruptly on Mr. Satterthwaite, “did he see me do my kissing act with Oliver last night?”
“Not that I know of. When—?”
“All in the moonlight. As we were going down the path. I thought he was still looking from the terrace. I thought perhaps if he saw me and Oliver—well, I thought it might wake him up a bit. Because he did like me. I could swear he liked me.”
“Wasn’t that a little hard on Oliver?”
Egg shook her head decisively.
“Not in the least. Oliver thinks it’s an honour for any girl to be kissed by him. It was damned bad for his conceit, of course; but one can’t think of everything. I wanted to ginger up Charles. He’s been different lately—more standoffish.”
“My de
ar child,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, “I don’t think you realize quite why Sir Charles went away so suddenly. He thought that you cared for Oliver. He went away to save himself further pain.”
Egg whisked round. She caught hold of Mr. Satterthwaite by the shoulders and peered into his face.
“Is that true? Is that really true? The mutt! The boob! Oh—!”
She released Mr. Satterthwaite suddenly and moved along beside him with a skipping motion.
“Then he’ll come back,” she said. “He’ll come back. If he doesn’t—”
“Well, if he doesn’t?”
Egg laughed.
“I’ll get him back somehow. You see if I don’t.”
It seemed as though allowing for difference of language Egg and the lily maid of Astolat had much in common, but Mr. Satterthwaite felt that Egg’s methods would be more practical than those of Elaine, and that dying of a broken heart would form no part of them.
SECOND ACT
