"He doesn't remit," explained Francis rather disgustedly, following her over and sitting down by her at the other corner of the seat. "Other people do it."
"'Curiouser and Curiouser! I begin to think I'm in Wonderland!'" she quoted. "I think the easiest way for you to do will be just to tell me all about remittance men, the way you do a child when it starts to ask questions. Just what are they, and do they all look like Pennington, and are they trained to be it, or does it come natural?"
"A remittance man," Francis explained again, "is a term, more or less, of disgrace. He is a man who has done something in his own country which makes his relatives wish him out of it. So they remit money to him as long as he stays away."
If he expected to make Marjorie feel shocked at Pennington by this tale he was quite disappointed.
"And does Pennington get money for staying away, besides what he helps you and gets?" she demanded. "What does he do with it all?"
"I don't suppose it's a great deal," said Francis reluctantly.
"Well, all I have to say is, I'm perfectly certain that if anybody's paying Pennington to stay away from England, they're some horrid kind of person that just is disagreeable, and doesn't know his real worth. Why, Francis, he's helped me learn the ways here, and looked after me, as if he was my mother. He's exactly like somebody's mother."
Francis could not help smiling a little. Marjorie, when she wanted to be—sometimes when she did not want to be—was irresistible.
"But, Marjorie," he began to explain to her very seriously, "however much he may seem like a mother, he isn't one. He's a man, though he's rather an old one. And he did do things in England so he had to leave. I don't want him to fall in love with you; it would be embarrassing for several reasons."
"But why should he fall in love with me?" she demanded innocently.
"Lots of people don't."