“Believe so—why, look at her! She is all innocence. She won’t let her father kiss her.”
“Why?”
“She says it is so indelicate.”
“How does she know what is, or what is not, indelicate?”
“Damn it, younker, you’d provoke a saint. She assures me when she is forced to shake hands with a grown-up man, that it actually gives her a cold shudder all over. I don’t think that she ever kissed anybody but her mother, and that was years ago.”
“Perhaps she does not know how.”
“I’m sure she don’t. If I had a fortune, I’d marry her tomorrow, only I’m afraid she’s too modest.”
“Your fear is very commendable. Are the ladies at Chatham so remarkable for modesty?”
“No; and that’s what makes Jemima so singular.”
I like to make people happy, if they are not so; and if they are, even though that happiness may be the creation of a delusion, I like to leave them so. I, therefore, encouraged Mr Pridhomme to pour all his raptures into, what he thought, an approving ear, and Jemima was the theme, until he left me at the door of the hotel at which I was to dine with Captain Reud. Whatever the reader may think of Jemima, I was, at this period, perfectly innocent myself, though not wholly ignorant. I should have deemed Miss Jemima’s osculatory art as the mere effect of high spirits and hoyden playfulness, had it not been for the hypocrisy that she was displaying towards my messmate. I had translated Gil Blas at school, and I therefore set her down for an intrepid coquette, if not une franche aventurière. However, though I pitied my messmate, that was no reason why I should not enjoy my dinner.