“Lady Helen!” Never shall I forget that gasping shriek nor that poor scandalized little face. I almost relented.
“If she will only admit it,” I pursued gloomily, “but they scarcely ever will. I do know one American woman who told me the second time I met her that she had a lover, but she had lived in England fifteen years and cut all her American acquaintances. I cannot understand your reticence.”
“Lady Helen! Do you mean to insinuate that any of us——”
“Oh, dear me, no. You are all shockingly virtuous here.”
She stared at me for a moment longer, then curiosity got the better of her horror. She did not replace her hand within my arm, but she resumed her walk to my camp, evidently determined to understand me.
“Let us have this out, Lady Helen, I implore you?” she said. “Do I understand that you countenance immorality?”
“I accept the inevitable. It does not appeal to me personally, but if it does to other women and helps them to dissipate the ennui of life, that is none of my affair.”
“Ah, that is the result of having every good thing in life flung at your feet, of living an idle life of fashion that has no excitement left in it but intrigue.”
“Our lowest class is much worse than our highest, and quite open and unembarrassed about it.”
“I cannot account for it!” The poor little woman’s voice was tragic.