“Are you upset with me?”
“Absolutely not!” Why did she get in trouble for talking and then now get in trouble fornot talking? “I’m just—it’s only that—”
“You can tell me the truth,” Ophelia said, her voice small and quiet in a way that Justine hated. It was the sound of her friend doubting herself, questioning what she had done wrong, believing herself to have made a grave social faux pas.
“Ophelia,” Justine sighed. She rubbed her hands on her face. “I don’t want to say anything because I don’t want you to know.”
More silence, and Justine could practically hear Ophelia crawling up inside her shell.
“Not like that. I mean, that I don’t want you complicit.” Justine gritted her teeth. Might as well say it now, she thought. Since she’d confessed to having a scheme.
“What would I be complicit in?” Ophelia asked, her words dancing on the knife-edge of support and propriety.
“Maybe nothing?” Justine said, not knowing what Karl would even say to her when she snuck down to see him. “But maybe everything?”
“Is this about Mr. Vogel?”
“Yes.”
“You like him very much.”
“More than I’ve liked anyone other than you. And well, Prudence and Eleanor. The first time I’ve liked someone that also came with a fluttery feeling in my throat. Like drinking too much champagne, or laughing so hard I can’t breathe.”
“I’ve never felt that.” Ophelia sounded sad.
Justine could hear Ophelia’s nails clicking as she picked at them. It was her nervous habit. She didn’t do it often, typically only in midnight chats like this when she was in deep introspection.
“But if this leads to my ruin—”
Ophelia gasped. “You cannot be serious.”
“I don’t know what will happen, Fee!” Justine felt as if she could take out all of her insides, hold them in a bubble, and put them aside. All of the bits of her that warned her away from Karl, all the propriety, all the need to obey Lady Rascomb, all of the wariness of ruining the reputation of the Ladies’ Alpine Societyor Karl’s career. It was stupid, and she knew it, to put all of it aside for one night. But the compulsion to do so was irresistible.
“This is a very serious thing.”
“It is,” Justine agreed. “But I feel like I must. Not that I should or that I want to, but it feels as if I am being pushed by something larger than me.”
“God? Fate? The devil himself?”
“I don’t know.” Lust? Foolishness? Those were just as powerful.
“You’ll go to him when I fall asleep?” Ophelia asked, her words once again careful and precise.
“Yes.”
“So it doesn’t matter what I say, because this will happen regardless of its folly?”
“Believe me,” Justine snorted. “I know it is folly.”
“Then consider this a conversation of our dreams. I have been asleep, and I know nothing other than the blissful oblivion of rest.”
Justine sat up. “Truly?”
“What could I possibly say? To scold you is to only say what you already know. To tattle is to ruin you, and myself in the process. Why would I not say, be careful with not just your body but with your heart. And his. We need you both.”
She swung her feet to the icy floor, already seeking her slippers. “I’ll try.”
“Please don’t get pregnant.” Ophelia sounded very grave. “You cannot have morning sickness while climbing the Matterhorn. It would slow us down.”
