"Mrs. Thorne is already awakened to it," he answered; "she has spoken to me on the subject."
"There was your opportunity. What did you say?"
"I told her—I told her not to be uneasy," he replied, breaking into a laugh over his own inconsistencies. "But it isn't Mrs. Thorne who is to blame—I mean Mrs. Thorne alone; it is Mrs. Carew, the Kirbys, the Moores, and all the rest of them."
"In other words, the whole society of Gracias. Do you think we ought to corrupt them with our worldly cautions?"
"We're not corrupting, it's Spenser who's corrupting; we should never corrupt them though we should stay here forever. They're idyllic, of course, it's an idyllic society; but we can be idyllic too."
Margaret shook her head. "I'm afraid we can only be appreciative."
"It's the same thing. If we can appreciate little Gracias, with its remoteness and simplicity and stateliness, its pine barrens and beaches and roses, I maintain that we're very idyllic; what can be more so?"
Margaret did not reply. After a while she said, "If you will take Aunt Katrina to drive to-morrow afternoon, I will have Telano row me down to East Angels."
"You think you will speak in any case? I suppose you know with what enthusiastic approval Mrs. Thorne honors all you say and do?"
"Yes, something of it."