“Oh fie, Dudley! as if I mattered half as much as Humanity with a capital H.”
“To me, personally, you matter far more in this particular case.”
“And yet, really, the chief danger to me is that I might unconsciously catch some reflection of Lorraine’s charm and become dangerously attractive myself, instead of just an outspoken hobbledehoy no one takes seriously.”
“I am not afraid of that,” he said, evoking a peal of laughter of which he could not even see the point; “but since you are quite determined to go into the City as a secretary, instead of procuring a nice comfortable home as a companion, or staying quietly here to improve your mind, I naturally feel you will encounter quite enough dangers without getting mixed up in a theatrical set. Though, really,” in a grumbling voice, “I can’t see why you don’t stay at home like any sensible girl. If I am not rich, I have at least enough for two.”
“But if I stayed at home, and lived on you, Dudley, I should feel I had to improve my mind by way of making you some return; and you can’t think how dreadfully my mind hates the idea of being improved. And if I went to some dear old lady as companion, she would be sure to die in an apoplectic fit in a month, and I should be charged with manslaughter. And I can’t teach, because I don’t know anything. The only serious danger I shall run as Mr. Elliott’s secretary will be putting an occasional addition of my own to his letters, in a fit of exasperation, or driving his sub-editor mad; and he seems willing to risk that.”
“You are likely to run greater dangers than that if you allow yourself to be drawn into a theatrical circle.”
“What sort of dangers?… Oh, my dear, saintly episcopal architect, what foundations of darkness are you building upon now, out of a little old-fashioned, out-of-date prejudice which you might have dug up from some of your studies in antiquity books? There are just as many dangers outside the theatrical world as in it, for the sort of woman dangers are attractive to; and little Sunday-school teachers have come to grief, while famous actresses have won through unscathed.”
Dudley’s face expressed both surprise and distaste.
“I wonder what you know about it anyway. I think you are talking at random. Certainly no dangers would come near you if you listened to my wishes and settled down quietly at home. If you don’t care about living in Bloomsbury, I will take a small house in the suburbs, and you can amuse yourself with the housekeeping, and tennis, and that sort of thing.”
“And when you want to marry?”