Part 4 (1/2)
”Yes, but she 'squirmed' for her,” said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
”Ah if you know it I may confess she has told me as much.”
My friend stared. ”Told _you_? There's one of the things they do!”
”Well, it was only a word. Won't you let me know whether you do think her a flirt?”
”Try her yourself--that's better than asking another woman; especially as you pretend to study folk.”
”Oh your judgement wouldn't probably at all determine mine. It's as bearing on _you_ I ask it.” Which, however, demanded explanation, so that I was duly frank; confessing myself curious as to how far maternal immorality would go.
It made her at first but repeat my words. ”Maternal immorality?”
”You desire your son to have every possible distraction on his voyage, and if you can make up your mind in the sense I refer to that will make it all right. He'll have no responsibility.”
”Heavens, how you a.n.a.lyse!” she cried. ”I haven't in the least your pa.s.sion for making up my mind.”
”Then if you chance it,” I returned, ”you'll be more immoral still.”
”Your reasoning's strange,” said Mrs. Nettlepoint; ”when it was you who tried to put into my head yesterday that she had asked him to come.”
”Yes, but in good faith.”
”What do you mean, in such a case, by that?”
”Why, as girls of that sort do. Their allowance and measure in such matters,” I expounded, ”is much larger than that of young persons who have been, as you say, _very_ well brought up; and yet I'm not sure that on the whole I don't think them thereby the more innocent. Miss Mavis is engaged, and she's to be married next week, but it's an old old story, and there's no more romance in it than if she were going to be photographed. So her usual life proceeds, and her usual life consists--and that of _ces demoiselles_ in general--in having plenty of gentlemen's society. Having it I mean without having any harm from it.”
Mrs. Nettlepoint had given me due attention. ”Well, if there's no harm from it what are you talking about and why am I immoral?”
I hesitated, laughing. ”I retract--you're sane and clear. I'm sure she thinks there won't be any harm,” I added. ”That's the great point.”
”The great point?”
”To be settled, I mean.”
”Mercy, we're not trying them!” cried my friend. ”How can _we_ settle it?”
”I mean of course in our minds. There will be nothing more interesting these next ten days for our minds to exercise themselves upon.”
”Then they'll get terribly tired of it,” said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
”No, no--because the interest will increase and the plot will thicken. It simply can't _not_,” I insisted. She looked at me as if she thought me more than Mephistophelean, and I went back to something she had lately mentioned. ”So she told you everything in her life was dreary?”
”Not everything, but most things. And she didn't tell me so much as I guessed it. She'll tell me more the next time. She'll behave properly now about coming in to see me; I told her she ought to.”
”I'm glad of that,” I said. ”Keep her with you as much as possible.”
”I don't follow you closely,” Mrs. Nettlepoint replied, ”but so far as I do I don't think your remarks in the best taste.”
”Well, I'm too excited, I lose my head in these sports,” I had to recognise--”cold-blooded as you think me. Doesn't she like Mr.