"It's not half as funny as she thinks it. And, funniness and all, she didn't like it."
"You can hardly expect her to," said Straker.
"Of course," said Fanny, musing, "there's a sort of innocence about him, or else he couldn't think it."
Straker admitted that, as far as Philippa went, that might be said of him.
"That's why I hate somehow to see him made a fool of. It doesn't seem fair play, you know. It's taking advantage of his innocence."
Straker had to laugh, for really, Furny's innocence!
"He always was," Fanny meditated aloud, "a fool about women."
"Oh, well, then," said Straker cheerfully. "She can't make him——"
"She can. She does. She draws out all the folly in him. I'm fond of Philippa——"
That meant that Fanny was blaming Philippa as much as she could blame anybody. Immorality she understood, and could excuse; for immorality there was always some provocation; what she couldn't stand was the unfairness of Philippa's proceeding, the inequality in the game.