She ignored this speech in its entirety.
“To think,” she pursued, “that one cannot travel in a daughterly way with a gentleman of seventy without—”
“Yes,” he interrupted, “but that is why it is best not to travel in the charge of gentlemen. One is always so liable to be disagreeably urged to become a marchioness.”
She assented with a thoughtful nod.
“I don’t answer all his letters,” she said; “I burn them.”
“Poor marquis!”
“They are good letters of their kind; but there are a whole lot of things which it does not pay to write to a widow. You can fool a girl, but a widow always knows.”
“Does a widow always know?”
“Oh, dear me; yes.”
“Then why did you not save the poor marquis his pain?”