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Page 19
She went quickly out into the large hall, and the curate followed with
alacrity. Max and his mother were engaged in a wrangle over some soup
and coal tickets which somebody had mislaid, and in the search for which
the whole room, with its parcels and bundles, had to be overturned.
Queenie, who was at work at the end of the room, near the window,
uttered a short laugh. Dudley, who was standing a little way off, drew
nearer, and asked what she was laughing at.
"Oh, that misguided youth who has just gone out!"
"Misguided?"
"Yes," said Queenie, shortly. "If he hadn't been misguided, he would
have devoted his attention to me, not to Doreen. By all the laws of
society, curates' wives should be plain. They should also be simple in
their dress, and devoted to good works. Doreen says so herself. Why,
then, didn't he see that I was the wife for him and not the beauty?"
"Don't you think she will have him, then?" asked Dudley, very stiffly,
after a short pause. "She seems to like him. There was no need, surely,
for her to have been in such a hurry to take him into the grounds, if
she had felt no particular pleasure in his society."
Queenie looked up rather slyly out of her little light eyes. She was
distressed on account of her sister's trouble about this apparently
vacillating lover, and irritated herself by his strange conduct. But at
the bottom of her heart she believed in him and in his affection for
Doreen, just as her sister herself did, and she would have given the
world to make things right between two people whom she chose to believe
intended by nature for each other.
"I think there are other people in the world whose society Doreen likes
better," she said at last, below her breath.
The wrangle at the other end of the room was still going on, and nobody
heard her but Dudley. He flushed slightly and looked as if he
understood. But he instantly turned the talk to another subject.
"Would you have liked that sleek curate yourself, really?"
"Sleek? What do you mean by sleek? You wouldn't have a minister of the
church go about with long hair and a velveteen coat and a pipe in his
mouth, would you?"
"Not for worlds, I assure you. He is a most beautiful creature, and I
admire him very much, though he is perhaps hardly the sort of man I
should have expected both you girls to rave about. And as for you, I
thought you were too good to rave about anybody! You are unlike yourself
this morning, and more like Doreen."
Queenie laughed again that satirical little laugh which made a man
wonder what her thoughts exactly were.
"You say that because you don't know anything about me. I don't talk
when Doreen is talking, because then nobody would listen to me. I could
talk, too, if anybody ever talked to me."
"But one sees so little of you," pleaded Dudley. "You are generally out
district-visiting, or busy for Mrs. Wedmore, so that one hasn't a chance
of knowing you well. And one has got an idea that you are too good to
waste your time in idle conversation with a mere man!"
"Good!" cried Queenie contemptuously. "There's nothing good about my
district-visiting. I like it, Doreen goes about telling people it is
good of me. But that's only because she wouldn't care about it herself.
I like fussing about and thinking I am making myself useful. It's like
mamma's knitting, which gets her the reputation of being very
industrious, while all the time she enjoys it very much."
"But you yourself said you were 'devoted to good works,' I quote your
very words."
"That was only in fun. It's what Doreen says of me. You must have heard
her. She is much better than I am--really much, more unselfish--much
more amiable. Only because she's always bright and full of fun, she
doesn't get the credit of any of her good qualities. People think she's
only indulging her own inclination when she keeps us all amused and
happy all day long. But they don't know that she can suffer just as much
as anybody else, and that it costs her an effort to be lively for our
sakes when she feels miserable."
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