“Girls grow older quicker than boys.”
“But I mean always innocent,” persisted Michael. “I don’t mean all girls, of course. But—well—a girl like you.”
“Very innocent girls are usually very stupid girls,” Stella asserted.
Michael made a resolution to watch his sister’s behaviour when she came back to London next year to make her first public appearance at a concert. For the moment, feeling overmatched, he changed the trend of his reproof.
“Well, even if you do talk about people not being married, I think it’s rotten to talk about mother like that.”
“You stupid old thing, as if I should do it with anyone but you, and I only talked about her to you because you look so sort of cosy and confidential in these ferns.”
“They’re not ferns—they’re bracken. If I thought such a thing was possible,” declared Michael, “I believe I’d go mad. I don’t think I could ever again speak to anybody I knew.”
“Why not, if they didn’t know?”
“How like a girl! Stella, you make me feel uncomfortable, you do really.”
Stella stretched her full length in the luxurious greenery.