"What?" demanded Annie, at the little stop Lyra made.
"Well, you know what people do _say_, Annie."
"What?"
"Why, that you're very much out of health, or--" Lyra made another of her
tantalising stops.
"Or what?"
"Or Dr. Morrell is very much in love."
"Lyra, I can't allow you to say such things to me."
"No; that's what I've kept saying to myself all the time. But you would
have it _out_ of me. _I_ didn't want to say it."
It was impossible to resist Lyra's pretended deprecation. Annie laughed. "I
suppose I can't help people's talking, and I ought to be too old to care."
"You ought, but you're not," said Lyra flatteringly. "Well, Annie, what do
you think of our little evening at Mrs. Munger's in the dim retrospect?
Poor Ralph! What did the doctor say about him?" She listened with so keen
a relish for the report of Putney's sayings that Annie felt as if she had
been turning the affair into comedy for Lyra's amusement. "Oh dear, I wish
I could hear him! I thought I should have died last night when he came
back, and began to scare everybody blue with his highly personal remarks.
I wish he'd had time to get round to the Northwicks."
"Lyra," said Annie, nerving herself to the office; "don't you think it was
wicked to treat that poor girl as you did?"
"Well, I suppose that's the way some people might look at it," said Lyra
dispassionately.
"Then how--_how_ could you do it?"
"Oh, it's easy enough to behave wickedly, Annie, when you feel like it,"
said Lyra, much amused by Annie's fervour, apparently. "Besides, I don't
know that it was so _very_ wicked. What makes you think it was?"
"Oh, it wasn't that merely. Lyra, may I--_may_ I speak to you plainly,
frankly--like a sister?" Annie's heart filled with tenderness for Lyra,
with the wish to help her, to save a person who charmed her so much.
"Well, like a _step_-sister, you may," said Lyra demurely.
"It wasn't for her sake alone that I hated to see it. It was for your
sake--for _his_ sake."
"Well, that's very kind of you, Annie," said Lyra, without the least
resentment. "And I know what you mean. But it really doesn't hurt
either Jack or me. I'm not very goody-goody, Annie; I don't pretend to
be; but I'm not very baddy-baddy either. I assure you"--Lyra laughed
mischievously--"I'm one of the very few persons in Hatboro' who are better
than they should be."