Roger's face was expressive--but Alwynne was staring at the uneasy butterfly.
"It doesn't matter, as a rule. Only Louise had no one else--and it just broke her heart. If she had been grown-up it would have been like being in love."
"Don't you see?" said Alwynne innocently.
"I see." He was carefully expressionless.
"And then she was run down and did her work badly. And Clare hates illness--besides--she thought Louise was slacking. I tried to make her see----Oh," she cried passionately, "why didn't I try harder? It's haunting me, Roger, that I didn't try hard enough. I ought to have known how she felt--I was near her age. Clare couldn't be expected to--but Louise talked to me sometimes--I ought to have seen. I did see. All that summer she went about so white and miserable--and Clare was angry with her--and I hadn't the pluck to tackle either of them. I was afraid of being a busybody--I was afraid of upsetting Clare. You see--I'm awfully fond of Clare. She makes you forget everything but herself. And, of course, she never realised what was wrong with Louise. I didn't altogether, either--you do believe that?" She broke off, questioning pitifully, as if he were her judge.
"Right till the day of the play, I never really saw how crazily miserable she was growing. She was crazy--don't you think?"
"You want to think so?" He considered her curiously.
"It's deadly sin? Or don't you believe----?"
"No," he said. "There's such a thing as the right of exit--but go on."
"I'll tell you what I think presently. I want all your thoughts now----There were signs----?"
"Of insanity? No. But she was--exaggerated--too intelligent--too babyish--too brilliant--too everything. She felt things too much. She failed in an exam.--sheer overwork--just before."
"Only to please Clare. Clare didn't like her failing."
"Did she tell the child so?" His tone was stern.
"Clare would have told me if they had had a row. She tells me everything."
"Oh--thirty-three--thirty-four--thirty-five. I don't really know. She never talks about ages and looks and that sort of thing. She rather despises all that. She laughs at me for--for liking clothes...." Her little blush made her look natural again. "But why?"
"I wondered. Then there was nothing to upset the child?"