“Which same little influence?” asked the lady, agog with a sense of secrecy, and genuinely anxious as to anything affecting her son.
“Why, the girl, Winifred Bartlett.”
“Bartlett! As far as I know, I have never even heard her name.”
“Extraordinary! Why, it’s the talk of the club.”
“Tell me. What is it all about?”
“Ah, I must not be indiscreet. When I mentioned her, I took it for granted that you knew all about it, or I should not have told tales out of school.”
“Yes, but you and I are of a different generation than Rex. He belongs to the spring, we belong to the autumn. There is no question of telling tales out of school as between you and him. So now, please, you are going to tell me all.”
“Well, the usual story: A girl of lower social class; a young man’s head turned by her wiles; the conventions more or less defied; business yawned at; mother, friends, everything shelved for the time being, and nothing important but the one thing. It’s not serious, perhaps. So long as business is not too much neglected, and no financial consequences follow, society thinks not a whit worse of a young man on that account—on one condition, mark you! There must be no question of marriage. But in this case there is that question.”
“But this is merely ridiculous!” laughed Mrs. Carshaw shrilly. “Marriage! Can a son of mine be so quixotic?”
“It is commonly believed that he is about to marry her.”