‘But I was asking you a question,’ said Nancy. ‘You mean that no one would knock, if he saw your outer door closed. But what would they think?’
‘No doubt—that I was working. I am supposed to be secretly engaged on some immortal composition.’
Nancy pondered.
‘I do hope no one that knows you will ever see me coming or going.’
‘What could it matter? They wouldn’t know who you were.’
‘But to have such things thought. I should feel it just as if they knew me. I believe I could never come again.’
‘Why, what’s the matter with you?’ Tarrant asked. ‘You have tears in your eyes. You’re not well to-day.’ He checked himself on an unwelcome thought, and proceeded more carelessly. ‘Do you suppose for a moment that any friend of mine is ass enough to think with condemnation of a girl who should come to my rooms—whatever the circumstances? You must get rid of that provincialism—let us call it Camberwellism.’
‘They wouldn’t think it any harm—even if—?’
‘My dear girl, we have outgrown those ancestral prejudices.’ Tarrant’s humour never quite deserted him, least of all when he echoed the talk of his world; but his listener kept a grave face. ‘We have nothing to do with Mrs. Grundy’s morals.’
‘But you believe in a morality of some kind?’ she pursued with diffidence. ‘You used the word “immoral” just now.’