Now that he was losing his temper, Marian was regaining hers. Her voice had all the advantage of quiet intentions as she answered, “I did like her; I thought her very charming. I don’t dislike her now. But I’m sorry to see a woman of her age behaving with so little dignity.”
“A woman of her age! Dignity!”
“She is at least forty-five.”
“I don’t follow your meaning. Is a woman of forty-five cut off from human relationships?”
“From some, certainly; if she has any regard, as I say, for her dignity. And a woman in Mrs. Dallas’s position ought to be particularly careful.”
“Mrs. Dallas’s position!” She really reduced him to disgusted exclamations.
“You know, Rupert, that there are all sorts of stories about her. You know that Mrs. Trotter told us that her first husband divorced her on account of Colonel Dallas.—Other stories, too.”
"Upon my word! You astonish me, Marian! You heard all these vile tales when we first came here,—from people, too, who you’ll observe, run to Mrs. Dallas’s dinner-parties whenever they have the chance,—and you didn’t seem to mind them much when you were going there almost every day—and taking every one you knew to see her. What about your Aunt Sophy—if you believed these stories?—An old dragon of conventionality like your Aunt Sophy! You took her again and again, and arranged that luncheon in London with her when you and Mrs. Dallas went up—so that they should have another chance really to make friends. I remember you used the expression, ‘really make friends.’ It’s odd to hear you talking of stories at this late hour." “I only talk of them because Mrs. Dallas has made me remember them. I am quite as open-minded as you are about such things. I was just as ready to think well of her—even if they were true. Why do you call them vile? You wouldn’t think it wrong for a woman to leave her husband if she didn’t love him, and to go with a man she did love. If Mrs. Dallas did that, why is it vile to say so?—Aunt Sophy, as a matter of fact, said it was a different story. And she was charmed with Mrs. Dallas, just as I’d determined she should be, stories or no stories. I did all I could for her, because I counted myself her friend and thought it a shame that any one so charming should be handicapped in any way. But I didn’t imagine that a friend would try to take my husband from me.” Marian spoke with severe and deliberate calm.
“I like that! I really do like that!” said Rupert, laughing bitterly. “It’s really funny to hear you talk as if Mrs. Dallas could owe you anything! I wish she could hear you! I wish we could have her dispassionate opinion of that hideous old bore of an Aunt Sophy. It was obvious enough that she put up with her simply and solely through friendship for you. Do all you could for her! A woman who has hordes of friends—charming, finished, cosmopolitan people of the world! Why, my dear girl, it’s she, let me tell you, who has given you more chances than you ever had in your life for meeting really interesting people! They’re not the sort you’d be likely to meet at your Aunt Sophy’s, certainly. They’d perish in her milieu!”
“Mrs. Dallas doesn’t perish in it,” Marian coldly commented. “On the contrary, I never saw her more alert. She didn’t seem to find Aunt Sophy in the least a bore. She was very much pleased indeed to lunch there and she has looked her up every time she’s gone to London since; moreover, she’s going to stay with her at Crofts this autumn. It doesn’t look like boredom.”