“Till you’re almost frozen, I’m sure,” said Victoria.
Harriet looked at the two men in curiosity and suspicion, but she said nothing. Only next morning when the Callcotts had gone she said to Lovat:
“What were you and Mr Callcott talking about, really?”
“As he said, politics and hot treason. An idea that some of them have got for making a change in the constitution.”
“What sort of change?” asked Harriet.
“Why—don’t bother me yet. I don’t know myself.”
“Is it so important you mustn’t tell me?” she asked sarcastically.
“Or else so vague,” he answered.
But she saw by the shut look on his face that he was not going to tell her: that this was something he intended to keep apart from her: forever apart. A part of himself which he was not going to share with her. It seemed to her unnecessary, and a breach of faith on his part, wounding her. If their marriage was a real thing, then anything very serious was her matter as much as his, surely. Either her marriage with him was not very important, or else this Jack Callcott stuff wasn’t very important. Which probably it wasn’t. Yet she hated the hoity-toity way she was shut out.
“Pah!” she said. “A bit of little boy’s silly showing off.”