And people would begin to talk at once if she and her cousin (Michael was only a distant connection) were studiously to avoid each other, if they could not exchange a few words simply like old friends.

No one had suggested an attitude of rigid avoidance; but throughout life Fay had always convinced herself of the advisability of a certain wished-for course by conjuring up, only to discard it, the extreme and most obviously senseless opposite of that course--as the only alternative.
She imagined her husband saying: "Why won't you ask Mr.Carstairs to dinner?
He is your cousin and he is charming.

What can the reason be that you so earnestly refuse to meet him ?" And then Andrea, who always "got ideas into his head," would begin to suspect that there had been "something" between them.
_No.

No._ It would be far wiser to meet naturally now and then, and to treat Michael like an old friend.

Fay had a somewhat muffled conception of what an old friend might be.