“Well, thank you. At least, I suppose they are well.” She gave a slight laugh at the humor of this. “You could hardly imagine how little I see of them.”
“What has happened?”
“They have been going around with some new people, some Americans. They have been helping them to shop, and showing them the way one does things over here. Mother, you know, is always so ready.”
“Your mother is a dear.”
“Leslie is just like her. But I am sure they both enjoy it, too. They have not been home to lunch for a week.”
“And you?”
“Oh, I am not needed where there are already two who do the thing so much better than I could. I have not even seen the people. My day is very full, you know. Piano and singing-lessons, and I am painting again this winter, with Galletti, and I am going to a course of conferenze on Italian literature. That involves a lot of reading. There are, besides, the other, the usual things, the–” Her voice stuck; then, as she went on, deepened with the depth of a suppressed impatience. “I wish one might be allowed not 17 to do what is meant for pleasure unless one takes pleasure in it. But going to teas and parties is apparently as much a duty as school or church. Mother and Leslie at least seem to think it so for me.”
“I see their point, Brenda dear, don’t you?” He was not looking at her as with a gentle brotherliness he spoke this.
“You don’t go to many parties yourself, Gerald.”
“I am afraid nothing I do is fit to be an example to anybody. But it doesn’t matter about me. About you it does. I can’t say to you all I think. It would sound fulsome, and from such an old chum might make you laugh. But, being as you are, Brenda, surely your mother is right in thinking of le monde as the proper setting for you. You know I’m not fond of le monde, but it’s because it hasn’t enough such ornaments as yourself. With the life that lies before you–”