“Why try to account for everything? Facts are facts, that is enough.”
“I never have really believed one tenth of the scandals of fashionable life I have heard—I have trained myself to wait for divorce-court proof——”
“You have tried to dissuade me from visiting Mrs. Van Worden because she is suspected of having loved more frequently than she has married.”
“Oh, but that does not mean that I believe it. I simply do not want you to be identified with a woman who has been talked about. She certainly cannot contaminate you if you hold such extraordinary views. But do you, dear Lady Helen?”
“Yes,” I said impatiently. “Don’t you? Do you pretend to ignore the fact that hundreds of thousands of women have lovers.”
“I will not admit it.”
“But you know it if you know anything at all. Like your literature you blink it, as you blink every other fact connected with real life.”
Again she stopped and stared at me. “You look the incarnation of maiden purity,” she exclaimed, “a tall white royal English lily, as Mr. Rogers calls you. It seems incredible that you can have such a perverted mind. You remind me of that dreadful heroine of Mallock’s——”
“I have not a perverted mind,” I exclaimed angrily, for she really was too silly, “and I have nothing in common with that filthy creature——”
“I beg your pardon,” she interrupted hurriedly, “no one on earth would ever accuse you of being less stainless—really—than you look—I mean your mind—your knowledge——Oh,” she continued desperately, “I can’t make you out. I have heard of the insolent frankness of the English aristocracy—that you hold yourself above all laws—the Duke is terrifyingly coarse at times—and I suppose if you had done anything wrong you wouldn’t pay me the compliment to deny it—but—well—I give it up.”