There was a small fire.
“I am always cold,” said Launa. “I love a fire.”
“What do you think of Mr. Herbert?”
“I think him clever, and he evidently likes you.”
“Yes, he is clever. But tell me, Launa, are you modern?”
“In what way?”
“Would you ask a man who loved you if he had a past? Would you object to it if he had?”
“If a past were a present I would object. Can’t men be without past? Is there always a woman they have loved first?”
She seemed to hear the wailing of a child and the rustling of the trees, and to feel the fresh breeze. She shuddered. Mrs. Phillips observed the shudder and the look.
“I do not object. Men are different; they are coarse. They like kissing—indiscriminate kissing.”