“May one ask what mademoiselle have see’?”
Maude answered, speaking slowly and feeling her way: “When I left America I thought I was broad-minded and tolerant. My father had brought me up to be less narrow-minded than most girls.... He is a professor of philosophy. But I have found out that I was very narrow-minded indeed. I could see only one side, and that was the viewpoint of those among whom I was brought up. The thing I have come to see is that my home town was right in setting up its own standards and in maintaining them—because those standards were best for my home town.... But I have found out that other towns and countries have an equal right to set up their own standards and arrange their own modes of living. I think I can believe now that a thing which is very wrong in Terre Haute, Indiana, may be right in Paris or London or Rome, and that a thing which may be right in Terre Haute may be wrong in Venice.”
“I onderstan’,” said Andree, gravely. “The theeng you mean to say is thees, is it not? That an act it become’ wrong when we theenk it is wrong? But if one city theenk it is right, then it is right for that city? N’est-ce pas?”
“Yes, something very like that.”
“Is that an answer to the question I asked you at dinner a few days ago?” Ken asked.
Andree looked at him quickly.
Maude paused a moment before she replied; then she shook her head. “No,” she said, “that is more complex.... If you were a Parisian I think I could answer, yes, without hesitation. But you are an American, who, possibly, should cling to American standards, no matter where you find yourself.... It is different.... No, I don’t know what the answer is—yet.”
“And thees question?” asked Andree, directly.
It was something like this that Kendall had feared from a meeting between Andree and Maude, that some subject such as this would spring up, that he would be subjected to embarrassment and discomfort. He was embarrassed now because he fancied Maude would be embarrassed and because he feared Andree, in her child-like frankness, might say something which would shock Maude’s American prudery. He did not make use of the word prudery, but the state of mind for which it stood was in his thoughts. He flushed and was about to attempt some stammered diversion, but Maude answered, perfectly calm and without hesitation.
“Captain Ware asked me if I would ever marry a man who had had an affair with another girl.”