"Sainted Mary! didn't all men drink their very souls into purgatory those unreligious days?"
"Had he any relatives?"
"I never heard of any."
"Was he rich?"
"No; but when the signora, your mother, married him she thought he was."
It was not till later years that Fortune grasped the true significance of this statement. It illumined many pages. She dropped all investigations, concluding wisely that her mother, if she were minded to speak at all, could supply only the incidents, the details.
It was warm, balmy, like May in the northern latitudes. Women wore white dresses and carried sunshades over their shoulders. A good band played airs from the new light-operas, and at one side of the grand-stand were tea-tables under dazzling linen. Fashion was out. Not all her votaries enjoyed polo, but it was absolutely necessary to pretend that they did. When they talked they discussed the Spanish dancer who paraded back and forth across the tea-lawn. They discussed her jewels, her clothes, her escort, and quite frankly her morals, which of the four was by all odds the most popular theme. All agreed that she was handsome in a bold way. This modification invariably distinguishes the right sort of women from the wrong sort, from which there is no appeal to a higher court. They could well afford to admit of her beauty, since the dancer was outside what is called the social pale, for all that her newest escort was a prince incognito. They also discussed the play at bridge, the dullness of this particular season, the possibility of war between England and Germany. And some one asked others who were the two well-gowned women down in front, sitting on either side of the young chap in pearl-grey. No one knew. Mother and daughter, probably. Anyhow, they knew something about good clothes. Certainly they weren't ordinary tourists. They had seen What's-his-name tip his hat; and this simple act would pass any one into the inner shrine, for the general was not promiscuous. There, the first-half was over. All down for tea! Thank goodness!
George was happy. He was proud, too. He saw the glances, the nods of approval. He basked in a kind of sunshine that was new. What an ass he had been all his life! To have been afraid of women just because he was Percival Algernon! What he should have done was to have gone forth boldly, taken what pleasures he found, and laughed with the rest of them.