She told Olga, to be sure, that everything
was all right; that the thing for both of them to do, was to treat the
quarrel as if it hadn't occurred.
This wasn't what Olga wanted at all. She wanted Rose as an emotional
objective, to love passionately and be jealous of, and, for a moment now
and then, hate, as a preliminary to another passionate reconciliation.
Rose had divined that this was so. Indeed, she understood it far better
than Olga did, having had to evade one or two "crushes" of a similar
sort while she was at the university. It was a sort of thing that went
utterly against her instincts, and she was secretly glad that the
quarrel on the opening night had given her a method of resisting this
one that need not seem too utterly heartless.
Since the quarrel, Olga had been distant and dignified. She had a
grievance (that Rose, pretending to forgive her confessed mistake, had
really not done so) but she was bearing it bravely. Rose, when she could
manage the manner, was good-humored and casual, and completely blind to
the existence of the grievance Olga so nobly concealed.
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