“Perhaps not—but after all, George,” continued Mrs. Trimm with sudden fervour, “there are often very nice things to be said quite truly about people we do not like, and it is certainly charitable and magnanimous to say them in spite of our personal feelings. One may just as well leave out the disagreeable things.”
“Satan is a fallen angel. You hate him of course. If he chanced to be in society you would leave out the detail of the fall and say that Satan is an angel. Is that it?”
“Approximately,” laughed Totty, who was less shocked at the mention of the devil than at hearing tact called lying. “I think you would succeed in society. By-the-bye, there is another thing. You must never talk about culture and books and such things, unless some celebrity begins it. That is most important, you know. Of course you would not like to feel that you were talking of things which other people could not understand, would you?”
“What should I talk about, then?”
“Oh—people, of course, and—and horses and things—yachting and fashions and what people generally do.”
“But I know so few people,” objected George, “and as for horses, I have not ridden since I was a boy, and I never was on board of a yacht, and I do not care a straw for the fashions.”
“Well, really, then I hardly know. Perhaps you had better not talk much until you have learned about things.”
“Perhaps not. Perhaps I had better not try society after all.”
“Oh, that is ridiculous!” exclaimed Mrs. Trimm, who did not want to discourage her pupil. “Now, George, be a good boy, and do not get such absurd notions into your head. You are going to begin this very day.”
“Am I?” inquired the young man in a tone that promised very little.