"I should think he might! Freddy, really—"
Her daughter looked at her with narrowing but not unkind eyes. "I wish I knew why people fuss so over nothing," she said.
Mrs. Payton put her empty cup back on the tray with a despairing sigh: "If you can't see the impropriety—"
"Oh, of course, I see what you call 'impropriety'; what I don't see is why you call it 'improper.' What constitutes impropriety? The fact that, as Grandmother says, 'it isn't done'? I could mention a lot of things that are done, that I would call improper! Wearing nasty false fronts, as Grandmother does, and silly tight shoes. A thing is true, or it's a lie. That distinction is worth while. But what you call 'impropriety' isn't worth bothering about."
"Truth and falsehood are not the only distinctions in the world. Things are fitting, or—not."
"Howard and I talked, in an empty flat," Fred said; "I suppose if it had been in our parlor, with the Egyptian virgin out in the hall chaperoning us, it would have been 'fitting'?"
Mrs. Payton wiped her eyes. "There's no use discussing anything with you. When I was a young lady, if my mother had reproved—"
Fred made a discouraged gesture: "Oh, don't let's go back to the dark ages. As for Howard—I'll see him at my office, if it makes you any happier."
"Why can't he call on you in your own house? You cheapen yourself by—"