Laurence was half-amused, half-irritated.
"Oh, come!" he retorted, "it's too bad to make it an international question."
"I had promised myself such a fine time in that house," she continued, still gazing abstractedly at the floor. "Virginia is, I consider—and I believe you know that—the most perfectly lovely woman of my acquaintance. She represents the last word of our American culture; and I would advise every young girl, who was ambitious of social success, to study her as a model. She catches right on to everything new at once, and her power of repartee is great. My admiration for Virginia is so overpowering, that it would really be a wonderful encouragement to my self-respect to get a step ahead of her for once. Well, I concluded I could do that in a perfectly legitimate manner. I planned to ask you to let me go right around that house from cellar to garret, and acquaint myself with the whole interior. I wanted to see it before Virginia had brought our younger and more complex Western civilisation to bear upon it. I promised myself great gratification from doing that."
As she finished speaking, Mrs. Bellingham raised her eyes. That she was in earnest, keenly inquisitive, there could be no doubt.
"But, unhappily, in asking that you would be asking me to commit the greatest possible indiscretion," Laurence answered, laughing a little. "You see, my uncle is alive as yet. And while he lives I must obey orders."
"Orders?"
"Yes; and they are such preposterously unchivalrous orders that I tremble to mention them to you."
Mrs. Bellingham looked away. She grew a trifle anxious, having the greatest fear of hearing anything even remotely, morally or socially, incorrect. But the young man's manner tended to reassure her. He appeared particularly engaging at that moment.
"Yes, it will shock you," he said, "shock you outrageously, coming as you do from a country where no member of your delightful sex is ever requested to take a back seat. My uncle is a brilliantly clever person, but on some points he is a little mad. And simply at Stoke Rivers—I blush to mention it—no woman is admitted, no woman is permitted to exist."
Mrs. Bellingham's eyes positively flashed, her face went extremely pink.