“But surely she is quite a nice girl?”
Rosalind was silent for a minute; then she said, “Perhaps I ought just to warn you, Dumps. I wouldn’t trouble myself to do so—for I make a point of never interfering between one girl and another—but as you are Lilian St. Leger’s friend, and have been specially introduced to me through her, it is but fair to say that you ought to regard the German girl from a different standpoint from the English one.”
“Certainly the German girl is different,” I said; and I laughingly repeated some of Riki’s conversation with me in the Bois de Boulogne.
“Think of any girl talking of dots, and being betrothed, and getting married at her age!” I said.
“Oh, that isn’t a bit strange,” replied Rosalind; “they all do it. These German girls get married very young, and the marriages are arranged for them by their parents; they never have anything to say to them themselves.”
“Well, it is horrible,” I said, “and I told her so.”
“Did you?” said Rosalind very slowly. “Well, perhaps that accounts.” She looked very grave. After a minute she bent towards me and said in a low tone—too low even for Hermione to hear—“Whatever you do, don’t post letters for her.”
I started and felt myself turning very white.
“You won’t, will you?” said Rosalind, giving my arm a little squeeze.
I made no reply.