"I know, Nettie—and their writing articles of the horror of it, but always after they've satisfied their curiosity. The curse of our training to-day, Nettie, is hypocrisy."
Which was just like Nan—straight from the shoulder! But we just have to restrain those headstrong ones. "I wouldn't call it hypocrisy altogether, Nan," I said.
"What else is it? And what else was it when every old hen in our town went cackling from one house to another when the papers published that story about Larry losing so much money at cards one night? And some of these same women not able to afford a second maid and even doing their own fine laundering in secret—some of them playing afternoon bridge, Nettie, for a half of a cent a point, and all kinds of signalling to win. It just makes me sick. How do we know how many of them wouldn't gamble away ten thousand dollars in one night if they had it?"
And just then I heard "That's you, Nan!" in Larry's fervent voice, from behind the lattice.
Nan leaped up. I could feel her heart beating when she fell against me. "Did you hear that, Nettie?"
"I did hear something," I said—"a word from one of the cooks or maids down-stairs it must have been. They take the air in the patio of an evening when their work is done. Remember, voices carry far in the tropics—especially when it is damp."
"I never knew that, Nettie," said innocent Nan—"that voices carry farther in the tropics. And I'm sure it is clear and lovely out." And she stood up to look through the lattice.
Now, the best defense to an attack, Ned always told me, is another attack; so "But Larry did drink too much that time, Nan," I said.
"Why, Nettie Trench—from you!" cried Nan, and plumped back into her chair. "When did he drink too much? Just once—when he knew so little of wine that he had no idea how much would upset him. The trouble was that poor Larry never knew how to hide anything he ever did. No hypocrisy in him at any rate. And I'd a good deal rather have a man who did what Larry did, and own to it and be sorry right out, than a man that you never know when he is lying to you or not, or what he is likely to be doing when he is out of sight. And he gave me his promise in a letter that he would never touch another card or drink another glass of wine until I said he might. Mother wouldn't let me answer the letter. And he guessed how it was, and I don't blame him for writing her as he did. Mamma was too harsh. She paid too much attention to town gossip, and I told her that. And she said: 'I think, Nan, a little travelling and discipline won't hurt you one bit'; and then Larry went and got his appointment to the marine corps, thinking there might be a war and some fighting for him down in this country."
Now, I always have held that women, even as men of any account, are never so attractive as when they throw aside all affectation and stand forth just as they are—that is, if they're wholesome and good to begin with; and no surer way to hold the right kind of a boy to the line than to let him know that the right girl has never lost faith in him. But Nan was holding forth altogether too bravely—with the boy in the case so handy. A few little reservations—a few—at this particular time, I thought, would do no harm. And so "Sh-h, Nan!" I warned.