“Why so, ma’am?” said her son, warmly; “and why should we mind what the world says? The world is so fond of scandal, that a man and woman cannot have any degree of friendship for one another without a hue and cry being immediately raised—and all the prudes and coquettes join at once in believing, or pretending to believe, that there must be something wrong. No wonder such a pretty woman as Mrs. Wharton cannot escape envy, and, of course, censure; but her conduct can defy the utmost malice of her enemies.”
“I hope so,” said Lady Mary; “and, at all events, I am not one of them. I know and care very little about Mrs. Wharton, whom I have always been accustomed to consider as a frivolous, silly woman; but what I wish to say, though I fear I have lost your confidence, and that my advice will not—”
“Frivolous! silly!” interrupted Vivian; “believe me, my dear mother, you and half the world are, and have been, under a great mistake about her understanding and character.”
“Her forming a platonic friendship with a young man is no great proof of her sense or of her virtue,” said Lady Mary. “The danger of platonic attachments, I thought, had been sufficiently understood. Pray, my dear Charles, never let me hear more from you of platonics with married women.”
“I won’t use the expression, ma’am, if you have any objection to it,” said Vivian; “but, mother, you wish me to live in the most fashionable company, and yet you desire me not to live as they live, and talk as they talk: now, that is next to impossible. Pardon me, but I should not have thought,” added he, laughing, “that you, who like most things that are fashionable, would object to platonics.”
“Object to them!—I despise, detest, abhor them! Platonics have been the ruin of more women, the destruction of the peace of more families, than open profligacy ever could have accomplished. Many a married woman, who would have started with horror at the idea of beginning an intrigue, has been drawn in to admit of a platonic attachment. And many a man, who would as soon have thought of committing murder as of seducing his friend’s wife, has allowed himself to commence a platonic attachment; and how these end, all the world knows.”
Struck by these words, Vivian suddenly quitted his air of raillery, and became serious. Had his mother stopped there, and left the rest to his good sense and awakened perception of danger, all would have been well; but she was ever prone to say too much; and, in her ardour to prove herself to be in the right, forgot that people are apt to be shocked, by having it pointed out that they are utterly in the wrong.
“Indeed, the very word platonics,” pursued she, “is considered, by those who have seen any thing of life, as the mere watchword of knaves or dupes; of those who deceive, or of those who wish to be deceived.”
“Be assured, ma’am,” said Vivian, “that Mrs. Wharton is not one of those who wish either to deceive or to be deceived; and, as to myself, I hope I am as far from any danger of being a dupe as of being a knave. My connexion with Mrs. Wharton is perfectly innocent; it is justified by the example of hundreds and thousands every day in the fashionable world; and I should do her and myself great injustice, if I broke off our intimacy suddenly, as if I acknowledged that it was improper.”
“And what can be more improper? since you force me to speak plainly,” cried Lady Mary; “what can be more improper than such an intimacy, especially in your circumstances?”