“But you’re being absurd.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I want to know. I must arrange things. Will they begin on Friday? Remember—a girl of eighteen!—eighteen is just the age for these people to gloat over: eighteen and forty-five, what a titbit for you all!”
“Please don’t mix me up in this,” said Mrs. Stratton indignantly.
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “What a titbit for every one else! But, anyhow, remember that this girl of eighteen will have been alone in her guardian’s house two whole days by Friday, with nothing but the maids and whatever good character he may have built up for himself to protect her. May I safely take no steps till Friday?”
Mrs. Stratton was becoming very cross. “You’re being ridiculous,” she snapped.
“Not at all,” I said. “Logical merely. Very well then,” I went on. “If we may have two days, why not three? And if three days and there is no public clamour, and the windows are not broken by the Association for Getting Morality into Others or the Society for Suspecting Every One Else, perhaps we could have a week of innocent companionship, Rose and I? I have not unnaturally been looking forward to it. And if one week, why not two? Surely you must see that I am entitled to know this?”
“I can’t think why you never married,” was her reply. “Don’t you see how much wiser that would have been? Everything would have been simplified.”
“Rose and I have got on very well alone,” I said.
“But how much nicer for Rose to have had a woman’s guidance?”
“Why?” I retorted. “On all questions touching life, worldly education and so forth, a man can be as instructive; and in so far as protectiveness goes he can be as tender and as thorough. What remains girls get by instinct. And Rose likes me: that’s another great asset. Supposing that she did not like my wife?”