“I see. And now she’s got a naughty little twinkle in her eye.”
“Look here. Do listen seriously,” Michael begged. “She isn’t a straight-cut any longer.”
“Well, what did I tell you? That’s what I said. She’s gone gay.”
“I want to get her away from this life,” Michael announced, with such solemnity that Daisy was insulted.
“Why, what’s the matter with it? You’re as bad as a German ponce I knew who joined the Salvation Army. Don’t you try taking me home to-night to our loving heavenly father. It gives me the sick.”
“But this girl was brought up differently. She was what is called a ‘lady.’”
“More shame for her then,” said Daisy indignantly. “She ought to have known better.”
It was curious this sense of intrusion which Lily’s fall gave to one so deeply plunged. There was in Daisy’s attitude something of the unionist’s toward foreign blackleg labor.
“Well, you see,” Michael pointed out. “As even you have no pity for her, wouldn’t it be right for me to try to get her out of the life altogether?”
“How are you going to do it? If she was walking about with a sunshade all day, before you sprang it on her....”