Page:Queen Lucia.djvu/193

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"QUEEN LUCIA"
189

"The tenant of Old Place?" asked Lucia unerringly.

"Yes. Guess!" said George tantalizingly. This was his last revelation and he wanted to spin it out.

Lucia decided on a great stroke, involving risks but magnificent if it came off. In a flash she guessed why all the Yoga-class had come so super-punctually; each of them she felt convinced wanted to have the joy of telling her, after everybody else knew, who the new tenant was. On the top of this bitterness was the added acrimony of Georgie, whose clear duty it was to have informed her the moment he knew, wanting to make the same revelation to her, last of all Riseholme. She had already had her suspicions, for she had not forgotten the fact that Olga Bracely and Georgie had played croquet all afternoon when they should have been at her garden-party, and she determined to risk all for the sake of spoiling Georgie's pleasure in telling her. She gave her silvery laugh, that started, so she had ascertained, on A flat above the treble clef.

"Georgino, did all my questions as to who it was really take you in?" she asked. "Just as if I hadn't known all along! Why, Miss Olga Bracely, of course!"

Georgie's fallen face shewed her how completely she had spoiled his pleasure.

"Who told you?" he asked.

She rattled her tassels.

"Little bird!" she said. "I must run away to my class, or they will scold me."

Once again before they settled down to high