Lucia never did things by halves, and since she had promised to expunge the incident altogether, it was part of the fulfilment of her bargain that she should be in the highest and most exuberant spirits at their little dinner that night; and she came downstairs prepared both to enjoy herself and show Edgar that her forgiveness included that higher power of forgiveness which is to forget.
"Oh, it is easy to forgive," she had said to him once; "it only requires a sort of cow-like meekness to do that; but the forgiveness that counts forgets as well, and to forget an injury does not mean that you have a bad memory, but that by an effort you turn the thought of it out of your mind. It will come back, and you will have to do it again, until it sees that your mind is no place for it. So remember, whenever I injure you, I expect to be forgiven like that."
It was this that she was quite prepared to do now, for even an hour only after the occurrence she believed, though without conscious self-persuasion, that she had something to forgive. She forgot also, with swift and astonishing completeness, the amazing cheapness of her own share in it all, her feigned reproaches to him, her half-choking justification of herself. All that she remembered (and regretted) was the moment when she had been betrayed into candour and frankness. She must guard against that happening again. For that, in order to insure the success and happiness of her marriage, for his sake no less than for her own, was the wisest and most sensible way to behave. He had married her, it is true, under the slight misapprehension that she loved him, and for two years she had, with the exercise of a little tact and thoughtfulness, kept that illusion undeniably alive. It would be, so to speak, grown-up murder to kill it now; if she had meant to kill it, it would have been better to have committed infanticide, and have done so immediately after her marriage. To be frank with him now could only lead to unhappiness and misery for him and great awkwardness and discomfort, even shame, for herself. Frankness was the refuge of the tactless, thought Lucia, as her maid clasped her pearl collar round her tall white neck; they blurted out unpleasant truths because they had not the finesse requisite to play a delicate part. Honesty was the best policy only of those who were not politicians.
Charlie Lindsay, a thing not rare with him, was the last to arrive. To-night he was a notable last, and made a somewhat
