'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 will have no responsibility.'
'Heavens, how you analyse! I haven't in the least your passion for
making up my mind.'
'Then if you chance it you'll be more immoral still.'
'Your reasoning is strange,' said the poor lady; 'when it was you who
tried to put it into my head yesterday that she had asked him to come.'
'Yes, but in good faith.'
'How do you mean in good faith?'
'Why, as girls of that sort do. Their allowance and measure in such
matters is much larger than that of young ladies who have been, as you
say, _very_ well brought up; and yet I am not sure that on the whole I
don't think them 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 goes on, 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.'
'Well, if there is no harm from it what are you talking about and why
am I immoral?'
I hesitated, laughing. 'I retract--you are sane and clear. I am sure she
thinks there won't be any harm,' I added. 'That's the great point.'
'The great point?'
'I mean, to be settled.'
'Mercy, we are not trying them! How can _we_ settle it?'
'I mean of course in our minds. There will be nothing more interesting
for the next ten days for our minds to exercise themselves upon.'
'They will get very tired of it,' said Mrs. Nettlepoint.
'No, no, because the interest will increase and the plot will thicken.
It can't help it.' She looked at me as if she thought me slightly
Mephistophelean, and I went on--'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 will behave properly
now about coming in to see me; I told her she ought to.'
'I am glad of that,' I said. 'Keep her with you as much as possible.'
'I don't follow you much,' Mrs. Nettlepoint replied, 'but so far as I do
I don't think your remarks are in very good taste.'
'I'm too excited, I lose my head, cold-blooded as you think me. Doesn't
she like Mr. Porterfield?'
'Yes, that's the worst of it.'
'The worst of it?'
'He's so good--there's no fault to be found with him. Otherwise she
would have thrown it all up. It has dragged on since she was eighteen:
she became engaged to him before he went abroad to study. It was one of
those childish muddles which parents in America might prevent so much
more than they do. The thing is to insist on one's daughter's waiting,
on the engagement's being long; and then after you have got that started
to take it on every occasion as little seriously as possible--to make it
die out. You can easily tire it out. However, Mr. Porterfield has taken
it seriously for some years. He has done his part to keep it alive. She
says he adores her.'
'His part? Surely his part would have been to marry her by this time.'
'He has absolutely no money.'
'He ought to have got some, in seven years.'
'So I think she thinks. There are some sorts of poverty that are
contemptible. But he has a little more now. That's why he won't wait any
longer. His mother has come out, she has something--a little--and she is
able to help him. She will live with them and bear some of the expenses,
and after her death the son will have what there is.'
'How old is she?' I asked, cynically.
'I haven't the least idea. But it doesn't sound very inspiring. He has
not been to America since he first went out.'
'That's an odd way of adoring her.'
'I made that objection mentally, but I didn't express it to her. She met
it indeed a little by telling me that he had had other chances to
marry.'
'That surprises me,' I remarked. 'And did she say that _she_ had had?'
'No, and that's one of the things I thought nice in her; for she must
have had. She didn't try to make out that he had spoiled her life. She
has three other sisters and there is very little money at home. She has
tried to make money; she has written little things and painted little
things, but her talent is apparently not in that direction. Her father
has had a long illness and has lost his place--he was in receipt of a
salary in connection with some waterworks--and one of her sisters has
lately become a widow, with children and without means. And so as in
fact she never has married any one else, whatever opportunities she may
have encountered, she appears to have just made up her mind to go out to
Mr. Porterfield as the least of her evils. But it isn't very amusing.'
'That only makes it the more honourable. She will go through with it,
whatever it costs, rather than disappoint him after he has waited so
long. It is true,' I continued, 'that when a woman acts from a sense of
honour----'
'Well, when she does?' said Mrs. Nettlepoint, for I hesitated
perceptibly.
'It is so extravagant a course that some one has to pay for it.'
'You are very impertinent. We all have to pay for each other, all the
while; and for each other's virtues as well as vices.'
'That's precisely why I shall be sorry for Mr. Porterfield when she
steps off the ship with her little bill. I mean with her teeth
clenched.'
'Her teeth are not in the least clenched. She is in perfect
good-humour.'
'Well, we must try and keep her so,' I said. 'You must take care that
Jasper neglects nothing.'
I know not what reflection this innocent pleasantry of mine provoked on
the good lady's part; the upshot of them at all events was to make her
say--'Well, I never asked her to come; I'm very glad of that. It is all
their own doing.'
'Their own--you mean Jasper's and hers?'
'No indeed. I mean her mother's and Mrs. Allen's; the girl's too of
course. They put themselves upon us.'
'Oh yes, I can testify to that. Therefore I'm glad too. We should have
missed it, I think.'
'How seriously you take it!' Mrs. Nettlepoint exclaimed.
'Ah, wait a few days!' I replied, getting up to leave her.