He was shocked at her suspicion; at the things she believed it possible for a man to do. In the upper world, in a set that discussed its women freely, he had never used his knowledge of a woman to harm her. He had carried the same scruple into that other world where Kitty lived, where he himself was most at home, where an amused, contemptuous tolerance played the part of chivalry. The women there trusted him; they found him courteous in his very contempt. He had connived at their small deceits, the preposterous hypocrisies wherewith they protected themselves. He accepted urbanely their pitiful imitations of the lost innocence. Kitty, moving reckless and high in her sad circle, had been scornful of her sisters' methods. Her soul was as much above them as her body, in its unique, incongruous beauty, was above their rouge and coloured raiment. It was this superiority of hers that had brought her to her present pass; caused her to be mistaken for an honest woman. In her contempt for the underworld's deceptions she had achieved the supreme deceit.
Her deceit—that was his point.
"Then," she said presently, "what did you say to him?"
"I said nothing, my dear child, in your disparagement. On the contrary, I congratulated him on his engagement. As I'm supposed to be acting as your agent, or solicitor, or whatever it is I am acting as, I imagine I did right. Is that so?"
"Yes; if that's all you said."
"It is not quite all. I sustained my character by giving him a hint, the merest hint, that in the event of your marriage your worldly position would be slightly altered. We must prepare him, you know, for the sudden collapse of your income."
He rose and went to the mantelpiece, and lingered there over the lighting of a cigarette.
"You hadn't thought of that?" he said as he seated himself again.
"Well, he didn't appear to have thought of it either."