"I don't think recklessness is a good fashion to set, then," said Gertrude, with some asperity.
"Oh! nor do I," said Reggie. "I only meant that one excuses it more, somehow."
"I don't see why you should excuse it because a woman is beautiful," said she, seeing the cloud rising out of the sea.
"I don't know," said Reggie. "You must take a person all round; beauty is an advantage, and you set it off against a corresponding disadvantage."
"Do you mean that an incomparably beautiful woman is excusable if she does unpardonably nasty things?"
"I suppose it comes to that in extremities," said he, doubtfully. "You see, it is impossible to believe that such a woman could do anything quite unpardonable."
"Reggie, you're absurd," she cried; "don't talk such utter nonsense, and be thankful I don't believe you mean what you say."
Reggie turned round in surprise.
"Why, Gerty, what's the matter?" he asked.
"You hurt me when you talk like that," she said.