For, she
argued, if he hadn't done it this time with Barbara, he'd never do it.
I asked her how she knew he hadn't, this time, when appearances all
pointed that way? And she said that Barbara had come and told her.
Somebody, it seemed, had been telling Barbara it was known that she'd
taken Hippisley from Lena, and that Lena was crying herself into a
nervous break-down. And the child had gone straight to Lena and told
her it was a beastly lie. She hadn't taken Hippisley. She liked ragging
with him and all that, and being seen about with him at parties,
because he was a celebrity and it made the other women, the women he
wouldn't talk to, furious. But as for taking him, why, she wouldn't
take him from anybody as a gift. She didn't want him, a scrubby old
thing like that. She didn't _like_ that dragged look about his mouth
and the way the skin wrinkled on his eyelids. There was a sincerity
about Barbara that would have blasted Hippisley if he'd known.
Besides, she wouldn't have hurt Lena for the world. She wouldn't have
spoken to Norry if she'd dreamed that Lena minded.
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