Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [188]
He set the tenor for their encounters the first morning after the incident with Charles. He unlocked his door, made some necessary apologies and conformed to the reigning atmosphere of frigid politeness.
Kate, however, was only choosing her weapons. By suppertime on Friday, and after four days of shrewd observation, she opened fire. “I notice,” she said, passing the salt, “that you were outside today. Did you meet Philippa?”
Lymond accepted the condiment, but not the challenge. “We had a few words,” he said. “She is a—striking young person already.”
Kate helped herself. “We think so. What did she say to you?”
“Her remarks were few and deflatory,” he said. This was an understatement, as Kate knew very well. She observed, “I’m afraid she’s being rather unresponsive. We’ve been trying to teach her to feel sorry for you. I do dislike personal hatreds in a child.”
This time, after a moment, he called her bluff. “Perhaps Philippa and I should be thrown together a little more. She might become attached to me if she knew me better.”
Kate, brightening visibly, ignored the gleam in his eye. “That would make her sorry for you?”
“It might. The object of any sort of clinical study deserves compassion, don’t you think?”
“Snakes don’t,” said Katherine inconsequently. “I hate snakes.”
“And yet you feed them on honey cakes and forbid them to defend themselves.”
“Defencelessness is not a noted characteristic of serpents. Anyhow, I can’t have them lying rattling about the house. It gets on the nerves.”
“It does if you handle it by rattling back. I’ve no objection, you know to practising the social arts.”
Kate viewed him suspiciously. “I don’t see why I should abandon my entertainment because of your conscience.”
“It isn’t quite conscience so much as horrified admiration,” said Lymond. “From cuticle to corium in four days.”
“You have to be quick with them. They grow another skin. I thought it mightn’t be conscience,” said Kate, collecting platters.
He was gazing down at the table. “I really can’t go on apologizing. It would be too monotonous.”
Kate, taking a dish from the cupboard, halted beside him. “You don’t owe me anything, except a little amusement. Why not bite back?”
“Because,” said Lymond, lifting his eyes suddenly, “I’m a constant practitioner of the art and you are not.”
“I don’t mind,” said Kate wistfully. “Won’t you bite?”
“Like a shark. It’s a habit. And habits are hell’s own substitute for good intentions. Habits are the ruin of ambition, of initiative, of imagination. They’re the curse of marriage and the after-bane of death.”
Katherine surveyed the indifferent face critically. “For an advocate of chaos, you’re quite convincing. There is such a thing, you know, as habitual disorder—as of course you know: few have had such a permanently unsettled regime as you have. Suppose you had a chance to lead a normal life?”
“Let’s leave my sordid affairs out of this, shall we?” he said. “You’ve missed a point. There’s a nice difference between rootless excitement and careful variety.”
“If I can’t be personal, I don’t want to argue,” said his hostess categorically. “I may be missing your points, but you’re much too busy dodging mine.”
“Yours aren’t points, they’re probangs. I don’t see why I should help.”
“I do. Because Gideon would help cook his father if the cannibal quoted poetry at him,” said Kate.
“And I have drunk of Castalia as well as bathed in it.”
“It was Charles who bathed in it, as I recall. I forgot,” said Kate sardonically. “You like your privacy. My apologies for scrabbling round the edges in an undignified way. Pay no attention. Grimalkin goes quavering back to the chimney piece.”
The long, slender fingers tightened about the salt cellar. “Leave it, can’t you?” said Lymond softly.