"It seems to me," Collingwood said, "that we are making a lot of unnecessary fuss."
"Yes; let's drop it," came from Lady Attwill.
"Alice," Lord Ellerdine persisted, "don't you agree with me?"
She sighed, but it was necessary to preserve appearances. "Well, Dicky," she said, "Peggy has not shown a tenacious desire to observe the strict letter of every propriety. I know that there has been nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing but little frisks and frolics now and then—quite all right actually—looking perhaps worse than they were—nothing else. But, after all, it is not what you do; the trouble of it is what other folks say you do."
The persistent moralist was not to be put off. "The married woman," he said, in a voice as near to a pulpit manner as he could get, "cannot afford to have anyone say a word. Look at Alice. Before Attwill kicked the bucket she lived in a glass case. Didn't you, Alice?"
Collingwood chuckled: not merrily at all, but with a rather nasty cynicism—a snigger, in fact.
"Look here, Dicky," he said, "if you don't stop your sickening habit of preaching left-handed morality at me I'll give you up. I can't stand it. I am not moral—don't know the first thing about it—never met anybody who did. Man is not moral; environment makes it impossible. You're not moral, Dicky, although you may think you are. And as for society, it is absolutely unmoral."
"I say! I say! I say! Listen to our future Home Secretary!" said Lord Ellerdine.
"No fear," Collingwood answered. "I leave that field to Admaston and the other cackling crew of humbugs."
Lady Attwill laughed amusedly, and Ellerdine was about to say something else, when the door opened and Peggy entered.