“You were probably a new sensation for him,” inferred Mrs. Ferrall musingly. “You mustn't take him seriously, child—a man with his record. Besides, he has the same facility with a girl that he has with everything else he tries; his pen—you know how infernally clever he is; and he can make good verse, and write witty jingles, and he can carry home with him any opera and play it decently, too, with the proper harmonies. Anything he finds amusing he is clever with—dogs, horses, pen, brush, music, women”—that was too malicious, for Sylvia had flushed up painfully, and Grace Ferrall dropped her gloved hand on the hand of the girl beside her: “Child, child,” she said, “he is not that sort; no decent man ever is unless the girl is too.”
Sylvia, sitting up very straight in her furs, said: “He found me anything but difficult—if that's what you mean.”
“I don't. Please don't be vexed, dear. I plague everybody when I see an opening. There's really only one thing that worries me about it all.”
“What is that?” asked Sylvia without interest.
“It's that you might be tempted to care a little for him, which, being useless, might be unwise.”
“I am... tempted.”
“Not seriously!”
“I don't know.” She turned in a sudden nervous impatience foreign to her. “Howard Quarrier is too perfectly imperfect for me. I'm glad I've said it. The things he knows about and doesn't know have been a revelation in this last week with him. There is too much surface, too much exterior admirably fashioned. And inside is all clock-work. I've said it; I'm glad I have. He seemed different at Newport; he seemed nice at Lenox. The truth is, he's a horrid disappointment—and I'm bored to death at my brilliant prospects.”
The low whizzing hum of the motor filled a silence that produced considerable effect upon Grace Ferrall. And, after mastering her wits, she said in a subdued voice:
“Of course it's my meddling.”