"It is shameful!" she exclaimed, angrily. "If women had charge of the theatres such things would not be permitted."
"You forget," I replied, "that half the audience were women—ladies, if you please."
She bit her lip.
"You ought not to put it in the story, at any rate," she said. "It will only encourage people with debased minds to go to view it."
"By the time my book is published there will probably be an entire change of programme," said I. (I wonder if there will.)
Another drive, another chatty evening, another morning, and we went on again. Miss May smiled occasionally as I told of my preparations for making this voyage and of engaging a berth for her before I had even received her reply to my advertisement in the Herald. Then she listened with interest to the letter (the first one) I received from Miss Brazier, breaking our rule enough to remark, "That's a bright girl." I took her own reply from my pocket to give it verbatim, upon which she said—
"Have you kept that all this time? Tear it up now and throw it in the wastebasket."
"Tear it up?" I echoed. "Money wouldn't buy that little note!"
When the end of the fourth chapter was reached, and we took our noonday rest, she spoke at some length about Statia. She wanted me to tell her more than appeared in the story. That was the kind of woman one could admire, she declared.
"And yet, how can I judge a girl who has always been under the watchful eye of a kind father or brother?" she added, thoughtfully. "Who can say what evil might have crept into her life, had she been compelled to face the cruel world and fight for her bread?"