'No, no, because the interest will increase and the plot will thicken. It can't help it.' She looked at me as if she thought me slightly Mephistophelean, and I went on—'So she told you everything in her life was dreary?'
'Not everything but most things. And she didn't tell me so much as I guessed it. She'll tell me more the next time. She will behave properly now about coming in to see me; I told her she ought to.'
'I am glad of that,' I said. 'Keep her with you as much as possible.'
'I don't follow you much,' Mrs. Nettlepoint replied, 'but so far as I do I don't think your remarks are in very good taste.'
'I'm too excited, I lose my head, cold-blooded as you think me. Doesn't she like Mr. Porterfield?'
'Yes, that's the worst of it.'
'The worst of it?'
'He's so good—there's no fault to be found with him. Otherwise she would have thrown it all up. It has dragged on since she was eighteen: she became engaged to him before he went abroad to study. It was one of those childish muddles which parents in America might prevent so much more than they do. The thing is to insist on one's daughter's waiting, on the engagement's being long; and then after you have got that started to take it on every occasion as little seriously as possible—to make it die out. You can easily tire it out. However, Mr. Porterfield has taken it seriously for some years. He has done his part to keep it alive. She says he adores her.'
'His part? Surely his part would have been to marry her by this time.'
'He has absolutely no money.'