THE OLD MAID
darker, darling,” Delia added, still hopefully surveying her.
“Darker? It’s grey,” Charlotte suddenly broke out in her deep voice. She pushed back one of the pommaded bands that framed her face, and showed a white lock on her temple. “You needn’t save up your bonnet; I’m not going to be married,” she added, with a smile that showed her small white teeth in a fleeting glare.
Delia had just enough presence of mind to lay down the bonnet, marabout-up, before she flung herself on her cousin.
“Not going to be married? Charlotte, are you perfectly crazy?”
“Why is it crazy to do what I think right?”
“But people said you were going to marry him the year you came out. And no one understood what happened then.
[ 26 ]
