“My dear, he didn’t mean it. He couldn’t help it. They’re not themselves, you know. They don’t know what they’re doing. Johnnie was like a mad bull sometimes—poor Johnnie!”
“But—but—he was a gentleman!” cried Laura, in spite of herself.
“A gentleman’s just a man when he’s drunk,” said Coral shrewdly, “same as most other times—swears the same and smells the same.”
“But a gentleman doesn’t get drunk,” protested Laura. “At least——”
Coral laughed.
“Well, I’m perfectly certain Justin never has.”
“No, he looks as if he hadn’t. I’d think more of him if he had. He looks as if he’d never been drunk in his life—or kissed either. Except you.” She laughed again. “And that doesn’t count. You don’t count, you know.” She glanced sideways at Laura as she slipped off the bodice and turned to her own work again.
In silence Laura cut and threaded and knotted a length of cotton. They were sitting at their needlework. Coral, in search of amusement, no reader, but as expert a needle-woman as ever wasted exquisite stitchery on bad material, had insisted on inspecting Laura’s bottom drawer, had cried out against the serviceable longcloths and calico buttons, and had at last, with peremptory good nature, declared that she would attend to Laura’s trousseau herself. Laura must send to some pet shop of Coral’s for patterns, “the best value in London, dirt cheap, you couldn’t tell their lace from real!” And while Laura thanked her, but was firm against Tubbin and Spinks and coloured underclothes, Mrs. Cloud had slipped away in her mouse-like fashion (indeed, they had not known that she was with them or listening) and had come back again from a rummage of her stores to appease them with a roll of finest lawn, smelling of orris-root, and little bundles of lace from Italy. After that the trousseau increased on the filmiest of lines and apace. Sometimes, as they sat working, they even talked about the wedding-dress. But then Coral would talk about anything!... There was never any holding Coral.... A baffling woman, Coral.... She would chatter strange things till Laura was restless and excited, and then, with a word, a stray phrase, she would be a cold wind, bursting all the many-coloured bubbles she had blown for Laura, permitting herself some such kindly insolence as now, when she said—
“You! But you don’t count, you know!”
And, as I tell you, it took Laura those long minutes to adjust her needle and thread before she answered—