Chapter Twenty Two.
Lilias Interferes.
Nan’s compact of friendship with Gervase Vanburgh was announced to the family, and received with acclamation by the younger sisters, and with shocked disapproval by grown-up Lilias.
“Most improper!” she pronounced it. “You ought to remember, Nan, that you are no longer a child in the schoolroom, and that such an intimacy with a man of Mr Vanburgh’s age is simply another word for flirtation. It is all very well to call it friendship, but everybody knows perfectly well what it means!”
She stopped short with an expressive wave of the hands, and Nan glared at her with flashing eyes.
“If there is one thing more than another that I loathe—and detest—and scorn—and despise,” she replied, dropping out each word with vindictive emphasis, “it is looking upon every man one meets in the light of a possible husband, and taking for granted that you can’t be civil to him without making a fool of yourself! I don’t know quite what you mean by ‘flirting,’ unless it is giggling and making eyes, as some idiotic girls do; and I am quite sure that I am in no danger of following their example!”
“You know perfectly well, Nan, that it means much more than that; and Mr Vanburgh is a man of the world, and understands exactly to what you are lending yourself. Judging by his manner, I should call him an accomplished flirt!”
“Very well, then, I will ask him about it on the first opportunity. I will tell him what you say, and find out what his ideas are, before things have gone any further.”