“She’ll be all right,” said Courtesy. “And even if she wasn’t she wouldn’t say so. She keeps herself to herself. You’ve torn a button off your coat. Shall I sew it on for you? You’ll miss your maid.”
“I shall not,” said Mrs. Rust. “She was a fool to behave in that way. Nothing but indigestion.”
“You shouldn’t speak hardly of the dead,” said Courtesy, indomitably conventional.
“Stuff and nonsense,” retorted Mrs. Rust, and closed her eyes in order to close the subject. “That young woman...”
“I shall call her the suffragette,” said Courtesy. “She says she is one, and she looks like one.”
“At any rate, the priest tells me she is not married to the ship’s gardener. Is that so?”
“It’s not the priest’s business. Nor mine either.”
“You would drop her like a red-hot coal if she were not married.”
“Time enough to decide that later. I don’t approve of irregularity, of course. Marriage after all is an excellent idea.”
That turned the balance successfully in the suffragette’s favour. “You are wrong,” said Mrs. Rust. “Marriage is an idiotic institution. It must have been invented by a man, I feel sure. It is like using ropes where only a silken thread is necessary.”