Part 37 (2/2)

”Means?”

”If you persist in this folly, you'll drop out.”

Hortense chose another line of speculation. ”I wonder why your brother is so sure of me?”

”Charley is a set man. And I've never seen him so set on anything as on you, Hortense Rieppe.”

”He is always so kind,” murmured Hortense again.

”He's a man you'll always know just where to find,” declared Kitty.

”Charley is safe. He'll never take you by surprise, never fly out, never do what other people don't do, never make any one stare at him by the way he looks, or the way he acts, or anything he says, or--or--why, how you can hesitate between those two men after that ridiculous, childish, conspicuous, unusual scene on the bridge--”

”Unusual. Yes,” said Hortense.

Kitty's eloquence and voice mounted together. ”I should think it was unusual! Tearing people's money up, and making a rude, awkward fuss that everybody had to smooth over as hard as they could! Why, even Mr.

Rodgers says that sort of thing isn't done, and you're always saying he knows.”

”No,” said Hortense. ”It isn't done.”

”Well, I've never seen anything approaching such behavior in our set.

And he was ready to go further. n.o.body knows where it might have gone to, if Charley's perfect coolness hadn't rebuked him and brought him to his senses. There's where it is, that's what I mean, Hortense, by saying you could always feel safe with Charley.”

Hortense put in a languid word. ”I think I should always feel safe with Mr. Mayrant.”

But Kitty was a simple soul. ”Indeed you couldn't, Hortense! I a.s.sure you that you're mistaken. There's where you get so wrong about men sometimes. I have been studying that boy for your sake ever since we got here, and I know him through and through. And I tell you, you cannot count upon him. He has not been used to our ways, and I see no promise of his getting used to them. He will stay capable of outbreaks like that horrid one on the bridge. Wherever you take him, wherever you put him, no matter how much you show him of us, and the way we don't allow conspicuous things like that to occur, believe me, Hortense, he'll never learn, he'll never smooth down. You may brush his hair flat and keep him appearing like other people for a while, but a time will come, something will happen, and that boy'll be conspicuous. Charley would never be conspicuous.”

”No,” a.s.sented Hortense.

Kitty urged her point. ”Why, I never saw or beard of anything like that on the bridge--that is, among--among--us!”

”No,” a.s.sented Hortense, again, and her voice dropped lower with each statement. ”One always sees the same thing. Always hears the same thing.

Always the same thing.” These last almost inaudible words sank away into the silent pool of Hortense's meditation.

”Have another cigarette,” said Kitty. ”You've let yours fall into the water.”

I heard them moving a little, and then they must have resumed their seats.

”You'll drop out of it,” Kitty now pursued.

”Into what shall I drop?”

”Just being asked to the big things everybody goes to and n.o.body counts.

For even with the way Charley has arranged about the phosphates, it will not be enough to keep you in our swim--just by itself. He'll weigh more than his money, because he'll stay different--too different.”

”He was not so different last summer.”

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