“Did she hold off Crewton?”
“As long as she could.”
“Well, she at least has Crewton.”
“Is that optimism?” she asked.
“No; it is long division. What is the use of watching for miracles? Probably Pansy will be just as happy with Crewton as Alice will be with the last man she becomes engaged to.”
Miss Rittingway tweaked the handle of her parasol. “I have knocked about a good deal,” she said, catching my look at the “knocked about,” “but I hope I have retained that sense of moral proportion which makes a woman like to see another woman get the right man.”
“Presently,” I said, “I shall decide that you are not a chaperon at all, but a matchmaker. I approve of your last sentiment—”
“You are so good!”
“—and I should like to be credited with the same notion. I like to see a man get the right woman. But it is a wearing thing to try to direct the course of sentimental lightning. My feeling would be that in order to be a successful chaperon,—that is, to please the guardian, the girl, the man, and yourself,—you should undertake to regulate the social rather than the moral proprieties. I should go on believing, unless you were to contradict me, that it is not so much the business of a chaperon to see whom a girl meets and marries as to see how she meets and marries. Yours is essentially the supervisorship of form.”
“If you will stop teasing,” said Miss Rittingway, “I may tell you about the experiment of Mrs. Rudderson. It is not apropos of anything you have said, which is, perhaps, a good reason for introducing it.”