The teacher of mathematics stopped and looked at her.
"Thirty-fifth Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Walk over and take the stage or the Sixth Avenue car. Make the girls walk in twos and the couples close together. Walk behind them. Watch them. They'll stand it. Don't let them laugh or talk loud or giggle like idiots. I suppose you may as well get broken in first as last."
The voice and manner were brusque, but the eyes had a kindly gleam, and Belinda was devoutly thankful for the information so curtly given.
"Do they ever cry in the street cars?" she asked with an air of grim foreboding.
Miss Barnes's eyes relented still further.
"No, but they flirt in the street cars."
"Not really." Belinda's tone expressed incredulous disgust.
"Really. By the time you've chaperoned miscellaneous specimens of the up-to-date young person for a few months, Miss Carewe, you'll not be surprised at any breach of good taste. The girls carry on handkerchief flirtations with strangers from the windows."
"Girls from respectable families?"
"Girls from excellent families. Of course, there are numbers of well-bred girls who behave correctly; and there's nothing actually bad about the ones who behave badly. They are merely lacking in good taste and overcharged with animal spirits or sentimentality. I'm always surprised that they don't get into all sorts of disgraceful scrapes, but they seldom do. We have to be eternally vigilant, though."