"Oh, May!" cried Lady Dashwood. She was moving about the room in a grey dressing-gown, looking very restless, and with her hair down.
"You didn't come down again," said May; "you were tired?"
"I wasn't tired!" Here Lady Dashwood paused. "May, I have, by pure accident, come upon a letter—from Belinda to Gwen. I don't know how it came among my own letters, but there it was, opened. I don't know if I opened it by mistake, but anyhow there it was opened; I began reading the nauseous rubbish, and then realised that I was reading Belinda. Now the question is, what to do with the letter? It contains advice. May, Gwen is to secure the Warden! It seems odd to see it written down in black and white."
Lady Dashwood stared hard at her niece—who stood before her, thoughtful and silent.
"Shall I give it to Gwen—or what?" she asked.
"Well," began May, and then she stopped.
"Of course, I blame myself for being such a fool as to have taken in Belinda," said Lady Dashwood (for the hundredth time). "But the question now is—what to do with the letter? It isn't fit for a nice girl to read; but, no doubt, she's read scores of letters like it. The girl is being hawked round to see who will have her—and she knows it! She probably isn't nice! Girls who are exhibited, or who exhibit themselves on a tray ain't nice. Jim knows this; he knows it. Oh, May! as if he didn't know it. You understand!"
May Dashwood stood looking straight into her aunt's face, revolving thoughts in her own mind.
"Some people, May," said Lady Dashwood, "who want to be unkind and only succeed in being stupid, say that I am a matchmaker. I have always conscientiously tried to be a matchmaker, but I have rarely succeeded. I have been so happy with my dear old husband that I want other people to be happy too, and I am always bringing young people together—who were just made for each other. But they won't have it, May! I introduce a sweet girl full of womanly sense and affection to some nice man, and he won't have her at any price. He prefers some cheeky little brat who after marriage treats him rudely and decorates herself for other men. I introduce a really good man to a really nice girl and she won't have him, she 'loves,' if you please, a man whom decent men would like to kick, and she finds herself spending the rest of her life trying hard to make her life bearable. I dare say your scientists would say—Nature likes to keep things even, bad and good mixed together. Well, I'm against Nature. My under-housemaid develops scarlet fever, and dear old Nature wants her to pass it on to the other maids, and if possible to the cook. Well, I circumvent Nature."
May Dashwood's face slowly smiled.