Hilda took a calm, unprejudiced view of the ceiling. "I assure you I'm not an angel," she cried. "Haven't I cared? Several times."
"Not really—not lastingly."
"I don't know about really; certainly not lastingly. I've never thought the men should have a monopoly of nomadic susceptibilities. They entail the prettiest experiences."
"Of course, in your profession——"
"Don't be nasty, sweet lady. My affections have never taken the opportunities of our profession. They haven't even carried me into matrimony, though I remember once, at Sydney, they brought me to the brink. Quelle escape! We must contrive one like it for Duff Lindsay."
"You assume too much—a great deal too much. She must be beautiful—and good."
"Give me a figure. She's a lily, and she draws the kind of beauty that lilies have from her personal chastity and her religious enthusiasm. Touch those things and bruise them, as—as marriage would touch and bruise them—and she would be a mere fragment of stale vegetation. You want him to clasp that to his bosom for the rest of his life?"
"I won't believe you. You're coarse and you're cruel."
Tears flashed into Miss Livingstone's eyes with this. Hilda, still regarding the ceiling, was aware of them, and turned an impatient shoulder while they should be brushed undetected away.
"I'm sorry, dear," she said. "I forgot. You are usually so intelligent, one can be coarse and cruel with comfort, talking to you. Go into the bath-room and get my salts—they're on the washhand-stand—will you? I'm quite faint with all I'm about to undergo."