“You don’t mean that, Launa.”
His detestable habit of repeating her name irritated her. She looked at him.
“Why do you never call me Charlie? We are relations.”
“Are we?” she asked.
“Yes. That is one reason why I came, and then my mother asked me to come and see you. She and I are both worried. Mother thinks—”
“Do think yourself; you remind me of Uriah Heep.”
“My mother thinks,” he continued with a sort of leer, “that you are lonely. She fears the friends you have, the contamination of their talk about no morals—she says—”
Launa got up.
“You will either go away or else you will talk of something else. Speak for yourself, pray. I do not care what your mother thinks.”
Captain Carden looked at her.