“That’s true.” Arnold looked at her in surprise. “But I shouldn’t have expected you to know it. You are improving in perspicacity, Jane; it’s the first time I have known you aware of the vulgarity about you.”
Jane looked a little proud of herself, as she only did when she had displayed a piece of worldly knowledge. She did not say that she had obtained her knowledge from Mrs. Oliver and the Dean, who, watching Eddy and Eileen, had too obviously done so with troubled eyes, so that she longed to comfort them with explanations they would never understand.
It was certain that they were relieved that Eileen had gone, though the reason of her going had placed her in a more dubious light. Also, she forgot, unfortunately, to write her bread and butter letter. “I suppose she can’t spare the time from Hugh,” said Daphne. But she wrote to Jane, telling her that Hugh was laid up with hemorrhage, and had been ordered to go away directly he was fit. “They say Davos, but he won’t. I don’t know where it will be.” Jane, whose worldly shrewdness after all had narrow limits, repeated this to Eddy in his mother’s presence.
“Has his wife got back yet?” Mrs. Oliver inquired gravely, and Jane shook her head. “Oh no. She won’t. She’s spending the winter on the Riviera.”
“I should think Mr. Datcherd too had better spend the winter on the Riviera,” suggested Mrs. Oliver.
“Isn’t it rather bad for consumption?” said Eddy, shirking issues other than hygienic.
“I believe,” said Jane, not shirking them, “his wife isn’t coming back to him at all again. She’s tired of him, I’m afraid. I daresay it’s a good thing; she is very irritating and difficult.”
Mrs. Oliver changed the subject. These seemed to her what women in her district would have called strange goings on. She commented on them to the Dean, who, more tolerant, said, “One must allow some licence to genius, I suppose.” Perhaps: but the question was, how much. Genius might alter manners—(for the worse, Mrs. Oliver thought)—but it shouldn’t be allowed to alter morals.
“Anyhow,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I am rather troubled that Eddy should be so intimate with these people.”
“Eddy is a steady-headed boy,” said the Dean. “He knows where to draw the line.” Which is what parents often think of their children, with how little warrant! Drawing the line was precisely the art which, Arnold complained, Eddy had not learnt at all.