Trouble for Lucia

It went beautifully. Odd trains of thought coursed through the heads of both. Why is she such a hypocrite? he wondered. She was practising it half the afternoon....Simultaneously Lucia was saying to herself, Georgie can't be reading it. He must have tried it before. At the end were mutual congratulations: each thought that the other had read it wonderfully well. Then bed-time. She kissed her hand to him as she closed her bedroom door, and Georgie made a few revolutions in front of his mirror before divesting himself of the new suit. By a touching transference of emotions, Lucia had vivid dreams of heaving seas of ruby-coloured velvet, and Georgie of the new Cunard liner, Queen Mary, running aground in the river on a monstrous shoal of whiting and lobsters.