"I should never remember it—a phrase or anythin'—I never can remember what a feller says——"
"Oh! I know you'd always be honest about these things. I feel you would—about everything. It's all these lies that are so impossible: I think I've come to feel now after this first season that the only thing that matters is being straight. It is the only thing—if a person just gives you what they've got—what they've got, not what someone else is supposed to have. May Eversley used to say that people's minds are like soup—thick or clear—but they're only thick because they let them get thick with other people's opinions—you don't mind all this?" she said, suddenly pausing, afraid lest he should be bored.
"It's most awfully interestin'," he said from the bottom of his heart.
"There are some men and women—I've met one or two—who're just made up of Truth. You know it the minute you're with them. And they'll have pluck too, of course—Courage goes with it. Our family," she ended, "are of course the most terrible liars that have ever been—ever——"
"Oh! I say——" he began, protesting.
"Oh! but yes—they run everything on it. My uncle Richard ran through Parliament beautifully because he never said what he meant. And Aunt Adela—and Uncle John, although he's a dear. But then my grandmother brought them up to it. My grandmother would have about three clever people and then muddle all the rest so that the three clever ones can have everything in their hands——"
"Look here," he broke in, "I'm most awfully fond of your grandmother—we're tremendous pals——"
"You may be—I hate her. Oh! I don't hate her with melodrama, I don't want to strangle her or beat her face or burn her, but I'm frightened of her and she's always making me do things I'm ashamed of. That's the best reason for hating anyone there is."
"But she's such a sportsman. One of the old kind. One——."
"Oh! I know all that you can say. I've heard it so many times. But she's all wrong. There isn't any good in her. She's just remorseless and selfish and stubborn. She thinks she ran the world once and she wants to do it still."