“Of course.”
“And—and—you aren’t in love with your husband now that you’re married to him? Girls often are, you know.”
“What difference does that make?”
“Well—I should think France would know how to make love even if he couldn’t love—I fancy you’ve hit him off there.”
“Well, he may, but I hope he won’t. Forty! He used to talk a good deal about wanting to settle down. So, I suppose he’ll do that, and I am sure I could run a house as well as mother.”
“Run a house! Is that the way he made love to you?”
“He never made love to me. Mother always entertained him, and he had to sail as soon as the ceremony was over, instead of taking me up into the hills, as he had planned.”
Herbert felt a wild sense of exultation and an equally wild impulse to save her. The finest type of young Englishman inherits a deep and passionate tide of chivalry, and his was whipped hard and high for the first time. A crime had been committed, a worse one menaced; this he would avert if he had to elope with the child and ruin his career. There was no room left in him for humor; it was the best plan he could think of, just as Mrs. Winstone’s plan to make her innocent little niece so frivolous, worldly, and sophisticated that in a measure she would be prepared for life with one of the most blatant roués in England, was the best her order of brain could evolve. And Julia, plastic, unawakened, inexperienced, gave the impression of being entirely agreeable to any plans that might be made for her.
Herbert, young and chivalrous as he might be, and still able to fall in love at first sight, was the product of the highest civilization on earth, and in no danger of making a precipitate ass of himself. He also was as subtle as a frank and honest nature can be, and he realized that he must proceed warily. An innocent girl can be repelled even by a young and attractive lover, and Mrs. Winstone, although she would smile at a flirtation, would be the last to countenance a scandal in her family. Moreover, it was possible that he might be mistaken in the sensations inspired by this girl with the big shining happy eyes, hair that looked as if about to crackle, and a sort of electric aura. He had been in love before, and recovered with humiliating facility. His reason spoke, but all the rest of him cried out that he was in love, desperately in love, that it was the real thing, at last. And she needed him. That clinched the matter.
He changed the subject abruptly, and, as much as possible, the current of his thoughts. “Of course Mrs. Winstone is enchanting, ripping,” he announced warmly. “Quite the youngest woman in London” (this, without insulting intent). “But after all, you are just grown, and must have friends of your own age. My sister, alas! is in India, but one of her pals married my brother—and her great friend, Lady Ishbel Jones—we are all great pals. I’m sure you’ll like them both —”