“Oh, don’t you?” said Susie. “Of course a great many are not innocent, because they have been taught so young by seeing all kinds of dreadful things. But I think a woman’s natural character is much less suspicious than a man’s.” Mrs. Vachell came up and under the pretext of finding a chair drew Susie away from the crowd.
“I have been waiting to see you,” she said. “I have just seen Evangeline off to Drage again and I am very much worried about her. Has she written to you much about herself?”
“No, her letters are generally full of darling Ivor,” said Susie.
Mrs. Vachell looked her up and down for an instant as if considering whether she could make a cut in Susie’s plump little figure without letting out too much sawdust and spoiling it.
“She didn’t tell you that her husband thinks of sending Ivor away from her?”
Susie’s eyes grew startled, but she said quietly, “Don’t you think you have mistaken a joke of his? Why should he do such a thing?”
“I think he is a little mad,” said Mrs. Vachell. “The war shook a good many of them. He was always very strict with Ivor, wasn’t he?”
“Oh yes, but then men are so silly about children,” said Susie, a little reassured. “They never do understand them.”
“You were saying this afternoon that the responsibility for making them understand lies with women,” said Mrs. Vachell. “If you really believe that, it is time for you to help Evangeline. Her situation seems to me to be desperate.”
“What did he say he was going to do?” Susie asked.