“You young people, here, are very singular; one doesn’t know where to expect you. When you are not extremely improper you are so terribly proper. I dare say you think that, owing to my irregular marriage, I live with loose people. You were never more mistaken. I have been all the more particular.”
“Oh, no,” said Clifford, honestly distressed. “I never thought such a thing as that.”
“Are you very sure? I am convinced that your father does, and your sisters. They say to each other that here I am on my good behavior, but that over there—married by the left hand—I associate with light women.”
“Oh, no,” cried Clifford, energetically, “they don’t say such things as that to each other!”
“If they think them they had better say them,” the Baroness rejoined. “Then they can be contradicted. Please contradict that whenever you hear it, and don’t be afraid of coming to see me on account of the company I keep. I have the honor of knowing more distinguished men, my poor child, than you are likely to see in a life-time. I see very few women; but those are women of rank. So, my dear young Puritan, you needn’t be afraid. I am not in the least one of those who think that the society of women who have lost their place in the vrai monde is necessary to form a young man. I have never taken that tone. I have kept my place myself, and I think we are a much better school than the others. Trust me, Clifford, and I will prove that to you,” the Baroness continued, while she made the agreeable reflection that she could not, at least, be accused of perverting her young kinsman. “So if you ever fall among thieves don’t go about saying I sent you to them.”
Clifford thought it so comical that he should know—in spite of her figurative language—what she meant, and that she should mean what he knew, that he could hardly help laughing a little, although he tried hard. “Oh, no! oh, no!” he murmured.
“Laugh out, laugh out, if I amuse you!” cried the Baroness. “I am here for that!” And Clifford thought her a very amusing person indeed. “But remember,” she said on this occasion, “that you are coming—next year—to pay me a visit over there.”
About a week afterwards she said to him, point-blank, “Are you seriously making love to your little cousin?”
“Seriously making love”—these words, on Madame Münster’s lips, had to Clifford’s sense a portentous and embarrassing sound; he hesitated about assenting, lest he should commit himself to more than he understood. “Well, I shouldn’t say it if I was!” he exclaimed.
“Why wouldn’t you say it?” the Baroness demanded. “Those things ought to be known.”