“Oh—about nine; that’s early to begin the sheltered life.”
“You can’t begin the sheltered life too early; if you are going to begin it at all.”
“Why begin it at all, Jan?”
“Well my dear little Miriam I think there is a good deal to be said for the sheltered life.”
“Yes——” Mag settled more deeply into her chair, burrowing with her shoulders and crossing her knees with a fling—“and if you don’t begin it jolly early it’s too late to begin it at all....”
Then Mag meant to stay always as she was ... oh, good, good ... with several people interested in her ... what a curious worry her engagement must be ... irrelevant ... and with her ideas of loyalty. “Don’t you think soh?” Irritating—why did she do it—what was it—not a provincialism—some kind of affectation as if she were on the stage. It sounded brisk and important—soh—as if her thoughts had gone on and she was making conversation with her lips. Why not let them and drop it ... there was something waiting, always something waiting just outside the nag of conversation.
“I can’t imagine anything more awful than what you call the sheltered life” said Miriam with a little pain in her forehead. Perhaps they would laugh and that would finish it and something would begin.
“For us yes. Imagine either of us coming down to it in the morning; the regular breakfast table, the steaming coffee, the dashes of rishers ... dishers of rashes I mean, the eggs....”
“You are alluding I presume to the beggs and acon.”
“Precisely. We should die.”