‘Why, you old goose!’ she articulated, behind her handkerchief; ‘he said that to ME.’
Innes laid down the ‘Saturday Review’.
‘To you!’ he repeated; ‘Gordon said it to you!’
‘Rather!’ Mrs. Violet was still mirthful. ‘I’m not sure that he didn’t call poor little Homie something worse than that. It’s the purest jealousy on his part—nothing to make a fuss about.’
The fourth skin which enables so many of us to be callous to all but the relative meaning of careless phrases had not been given to Innes, and her words fell upon his bare sense of propriety.
‘Jealous,’ he said, ‘of a married woman? I find that difficult to understand.’
Violet’s face straightened out.
‘Don’t be absurd, Horace. These boys are always jealous of somebody or other—it’s the occupation of their lives! I really don’t see how one can prevent it.’
‘It seems to me that a self-respecting woman should see how. Your point of view in these matters is incomprehensible.’
‘Perhaps,’ Violet was driven by righteous anger to say, ‘you find Miss Anderson’s easier to understand.’