“Do the people who live in them like going?”
“Most of them are delighted. One or two are being rather stupid about it—really tiresome in fact. They don’t seem to realize how vastly improved their living conditions will be!”
“But you’re being quite high-handed about it, I presume.”
“My dear Joanna, it’s to their advantage really.”
“Yes, dear. I’m sure it is. Compulsory benefit.”
Linnet frowned. Joanna laughed.
“Come now, you are a tyrant, admit it. A beneficent tyrant if you like!”
“I’m not the least bit of a tyrant.”
“But you like your own way!”
“Not especially.”
“Linnet Ridgeway, can you look me in the face and tell me of any one occasion on which you’ve failed to do exactly as you wanted?”
“Heaps of times.”
“Oh, yes, ‘heaps of times’—just like that—but no concrete example. And you simply can’t think up one, darling, however hard you try! The triumphal progress of Linnet Ridgeway in her golden car.”
Linnet said sharply: “You think I’m selfish?”
“No—just irresistible. The combined effect of money and charm. Everything goes down before you. What you can’t buy with cash you buy with a smile. Result: Linnet Ridgeway, the Girl Who Has Everything.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Joanna!”
“Well, haven’t you got everything?”
“I suppose I have…It sounds rather disgusting, somehow!”
“Of course it’s disgusting, darling! You’ll probably get terribly bored and blasé by and by. In the meantime, enjoy the triumphal progress in the golden car. Only I wonder, I really do wonder, what will happen when you want to go down a street which has a board saying ‘No Thoroughfare.’”
“Don’t be idiotic, Joanna.” As Lord Windlesham joined them, Linnet said, turning to him: “Joanna is saying the nastiest things to me.”
“All spite, darling, all spite,” said Joanna vaguely as she got up from her seat.
She made no apology for leaving them. She had caught the glint in Windlesham’s eye.
He was silent for a minute or two. Then he went straight to the point.
“Have you come to a decision, Linnet?”
Linnet said slowly: “Am I being a brute? I suppose, if I’m not sure, I ought to say ‘No’—”
He interrupted her:
“Don’t say it. You shall have time—as much time as you want. But I think, you know, we should be happy together.”
“You see,” Linnet’s tone was apologetic, almost childish, “I’m enjoying myself so much—especially with all this.” She waved a hand. “I wanted to make Wode Hall into my real ideal of a country house, and I do think I’ve got it nice, don’t you?”
“It’s beautiful. Beautifully planned. Everything perfect. You’re very clever, Linnet.”
He paused a minute and went on: “And you like Charltonbury, don’t you? Of course it wants modernizing and all that—but you’re so clever at that sort of thing. You enjoy it.”