Part 3 (2/2)
”You don't observe--you know--you imagine,” Mrs. Nettlepoint continued to argue. ”How do you reconcile her laying a trap for Jasper with her going out to Liverpool on an errand of love?”
Oh I wasn't to be caught that way! ”I don't for an instant suppose she laid a trap; I believe she acted on the impulse of the moment. She's going out to Liverpool on an errand of marriage; that's not necessarily the same thing as an errand of love, especially for one who happens to have had a personal impression of the gentleman she's engaged to.”
”Well, there are certain decencies which in such a situation the most abandoned of her s.e.x would still observe. You apparently judge her capable--on no evidence--of violating them.”
”Ah you don't understand the shades of things,” I returned. ”Decencies and violations, dear lady--there's no need for such heavy artillery! I can perfectly imagine that without the least immodesty she should have said to Jasper on the balcony, in fact if not in words: 'I'm in dreadful spirits, but if you come I shall feel better, and that will be pleasant for you too.'”
”And why is she in dreadful spirits?”
”She isn't!” I replied, laughing.
My poor friend wondered. ”What then is she doing?”
”She's walking with your son.”
Mrs. Nettlepoint for a moment said nothing; then she treated me to another inconsequence. ”Ah she's horrid!”
”No, she's charming!” I protested.
”You mean she's 'curious'?”
”Well, for me it's the same thing!”
This led my friend of course to declare once more that I was cold-blooded. On the afternoon of the morrow we had another talk, and she told me that in the morning Miss Mavis had paid her a long visit. She knew nothing, poor creature, about anything, but her intentions were good and she was evidently in her own eyes conscientious and decorous. And Mrs. Nettlepoint concluded these remarks with the sigh ”Unfortunate person!”
”You think she's a good deal to be pitied then?”
”Well, her story sounds dreary--she told me a good deal of it. She fell to talking little by little and went from one thing to another. She's in that situation when a girl _must_ open herself--to some woman.”
”Hasn't she got Jasper?” I asked.
”He isn't a woman. You strike me as jealous of him,” my companion added.
”I daresay _he_ thinks so--or will before the end. Ah no--ah no!” And I asked Mrs. Nettlepoint if our young lady struck her as, very grossly, a flirt. She gave me no answer, but went on to remark that she found it odd and interesting to see the way a girl like Grace Mavis resembled the girls of the kind she herself knew better, the girls of ”society,” at the same time that she differed from them; and the way the differences and resemblances were so mixed up that on certain questions you couldn't tell where you'd find her. You'd think she'd feel as you did because you had found her feeling so, and then suddenly, in regard to some other matter--which was yet quite the same--she'd be utterly wanting. Mrs.
Nettlepoint proceeded to observe--to such idle speculations does the vacancy of sea-hours give encouragement--that she wondered whether it were better to be an ordinary girl very well brought up or an extraordinary girl not brought up at all.
”Oh I go in for the extraordinary girl under all circ.u.mstances.”
”It's true that if you're _very_ well brought up you're not, you can't be, ordinary,” said Mrs. Nettlepoint, smelling her strong salts. ”You're a lady, at any rate.”
”And Miss Mavis is fifty miles out--is that what you mean?”
”Well--you've seen her mother.”
”Yes, but I think your contention would be that among such people the mother doesn't count.”
”Precisely, and that's bad.”
”I see what you mean. But isn't it rather hard? If your mother doesn't know anything it's better you should be independent of her, and yet if you are that const.i.tutes a bad note.” I added that Mrs. Mavis had appeared to count sufficiently two nights before. She had said and done everything she wanted, while the girl sat silent and respectful. Grace's att.i.tude, so far as her parent was concerned, had been eminently decent.
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