They hadn't had a real chance to talk since Oliver
came back from St. Louis, and shortly--oh very shortly indeed by the way
things looked--the only thing they would be able to talk about would be
Elinor and how wonderful she and requited love and young happy marriage
were--and however glad Oliver might be for Ted and his luck--he really
wouldn't be able to stand that, under the present circumstances, for very
long at a time. Ted would be gone into fortune--into a fortune that Oliver
would have to be the last person on earth to grudge him--but that meant
the end of eight years of fighting mockery and friendship together as
surely as if those years were marbles and Elinor were dropping them down a
well. They could pick it up later--after Ted had been married a year say--
but it would have changed then, it wouldn't be the same.
Oliver smiled rather wryly. He wondered if that was at all like what Ted
might have thought when he and Nancy--But that wasn't comparable in the
least. But Nancy and he were different. _Nancy_--and with that, the pain
came so dazzlingly for a minute that Oliver had to shut his eyes to bear
it--and something that wasn't just stupidly rude had to be said to Juliet
Bellamy in answer to her loud clear question as to whether he was falling
asleep.
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