“No,” said Hortense. “It isn’t done.”
“Well, I’ve never seen anything approaching such behavior in our set. And he was ready to go further. Nobody knows where it might have gone to, if Charley’s perfect coolness hadn’t rebuked him and brought him to his senses. There’s where it is, that’s what I mean, Hortense, by saying you could always feel safe with Charley.”
Hortense put in a languid word. “I think I should always feel safe with Mr. Mayrant.”
But Kitty was a simple soul. “Indeed you couldn’t, Hortense! I assure you that you’re mistaken. There’s where you get so wrong about men sometimes. I have been studying that boy for your sake ever since we got here, and I know him through and through. And I tell you, you cannot count upon him. He has not been used to our ways, and I see no promise of his getting used to them. He will stay capable of outbreaks like that horrid one on the bridge. Wherever you take him, wherever you put him, no matter how much you show him of us, and the way we don’t allow conspicuous things like that to occur, believe me, Hortense, he’ll never learn, he’ll never smooth down. You may brush his hair flat and keep him appearing like other people for a while, but a time will come, something will happen, and that boy’ll be conspicuous. Charley would never be conspicuous.”
“No,” assented Hortense.
Kitty urged her point. “Why, I never saw or beard of anything like that on the bridge—that is, among—among—us!”
“No,” assented Hortense, again, and her voice dropped lower with each statement. “One always sees the same thing. Always hears the same thing. Always the same thing.” These last almost inaudible words sank away into the silent pool of Hortense’s meditation.
“Have another cigarette,” said Kitty. “You’ve let yours fall into the water.”
I heard them moving a little, and then they must have resumed their seats.
“You’ll drop out of it,” Kitty now pursued.