I don't like sharing you. I like you to like me most, and not to find other
people wonderful."

"If you own that you are naughty, Rose, dear, and that you try hard to be
naughtier than you really are, I can't be angry with you. But it does hurt
me, for your own sake, to see you--really malicious, dear."

"Oh, dear! Am I that?"

"Really you are."

"Because I called Imogen Upton a saint in velvet?--and like her mother so
much, much more?"

"Yes, because of that--and all the rest. As for jealousy, one doesn't love
people more because they are wonderful. One is glad of them and one longs
to share them. It's one of my dearest hopes that you may come to care for
Imogen as I do--and as Jack does."

Rose listened, her head bent forward, her eyes, ambiguous in their
half-ironic, half-tender, meaning, on her friend; but she only said, "_I_
shall remain in love with you, Mary." She didn't say again, though she was
thinking it, that Jack was very foolish.




II