‘He wasn’t in proper kit,’ I remonstrated.
‘Oh, I wish you would speak to him about that. Make him get some tennis-flannels and riding-things.’
‘Do you propose to get him asked to places?’ I inquired.
She gave me a charmingly unguarded smile. ‘I propose to induce you to do so. I have done what I could. He has dined with us several times, and met a few people who would, I thought, be kind to him.’
‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘I have had him at the Club too, with old Lamb and Colonel Hamilton. He made us all miserable with his shyness. Don’t ask me to do it again, please.’
‘I’ve sent him to call on certain people,’ Dora continued, ‘and I’ve shown his pictures to everybody, and praised him and talked about him, but I can’t go on doing that indefinitely, can I?’
‘No,’ I said; ‘people might misunderstand.’
‘I don’t think they would MISunderstand,’ replied this astonishing girl, without flinching. She even sought my eyes to show me that hers were clear and full of purpose.
‘Good God!’ I said to myself, but the words that fell from me were, ‘He is outside all that life.’
‘What is the use of living a life that he is outside of?’