“I might be that without setting the Thames on fire, mightn’t I?”
Mrs. Sloane went on her way, and Mr. Pease on his, both thinking of Diana. What a ripping old lady Mrs. Sloane was! Of course, if he didn’t go and sit in Miss Carston’s garden when Miss Diana was away—it would look as if he only went there to see Miss Diana!—and he felt the ghost-like grip of gaiters on his legs.
VII
Where trespassers are not prosecuted they must
pray to be forgiven; or else change their ways.
Of course Sibyl’s friends were surprised that she should have left her children, and of course they said so; what are friends for if they do not say what they think?
Said one: “I should be afraid to love a man so much; he might die.” Said another: “Is that reason enough for not loving a man?” Another, a great friend, found it an extraordinary thing leaving her girl, just out.
“You know what the girl says of her mother?” asked another. “She says she is grande amoureuse!”
“Most extraordinary leaving her,” said yet another, having nothing more original to say.
It was passed along the dado of dowagers at a ball and most of them agreed. Only one said a husband came first, but she was a moderately young dowager with a tilted tiara and memories in her eyes.