“Oh, Mr. Greville, answer me this only: Is she with you?”
The face was so eager and troubled that he again relaxed a little.
“Certainly not, but I have the satisfaction to meet so agreeable a person at a friend’s house occasionally and think her an excellent example for a young woman like yourself. A man must always respect discretion in a woman and if—”
Again interruption, the words bubbling out unrestrained:
“Oh, I’ll learn of her, indeed I will. She wouldn’t have pulled down her hair to let the men see. Couldn’t I tell the dislike in your eye! But why didn’t you approve? Tell me and I’ll do my best to comprehend you. Oh, what a friend I might have in you could I deserve it! No one in this world ever spoke to me before, nor cared a straw but to make me pass the time for ’em.”
Mr. Greville assumed his best didactic style; the one that angered many men, but, expressed in his beautiful enunciation, impressed women from duchesses downward to the mesdames Wells of his acquaintance.
“No, I could not approve. Sure you can see it is to make your favours cheap, and what is cheap is scorned. Men other than the one who protects you should be treated with a perfectly agreeable good humour, but a decent reserve, and of all things you should avoid to anger the man on whose bounties you depend.”
“Bounties!” cried the fair listener, and instantly controlled herself, with heaving bosom.
“Bounties!” repeated the instructor firmly. “He takes you to decorate his home and enhance his comforts, and though Sir Harry had not the breeding to object to that particular display you often cross him more than is proper. I don’t myself approve of his method. Were a girl of your abilities in my possession I should have her educated. I believe you might repay it.”
There was a pause. A long one. Then, softly clasping her hands and regarding him with dewy eyes, the pupil said in a whisper: