“It’s indecent to engage yourself to a man who is twice as old as you are—who’s been the talk of the city! At your age! It will ruin you! It’s impossible! Talk to Harvey and you’ll see.”
Horatia permitted herself a smile.
“I knew when you went down there that something dreadful would happen,” Maud went on. “I should think you’d see the fatality of mixing up with a man like that.”
“Please, Maud, stop; there’s no sense in being so violent. It’s my affair after all.”
“It’s a family affair. I didn’t marry a man who’d disgrace us all.”
Horatia turned from coaxing tolerance into sudden hauteur.
“Nor shall I.”
Maud was politic enough to abandon a hopeless cause. She laid a hand on her sister’s unresponding shoulder.
“You get me all worked up. I don’t blame you really. You’re so young and inexperienced. And he is fascinating. So people say. But he hasn’t a thing to offer you.”
“Marriage to me isn’t a question of offerings.”