“You let him read anything he likes,” she scolded Mark.
“Sure. Where’s the harm? I haven’t got the Contes Drolatiques at the house or any of those things. Aunt Edith used to make me read the Book of Kings when I was a kid. Oh, Gurd knows that babies don’t come by express,” said Mark, “He’s lived in the country, too much.”
“I thought the American peasantry entirely compounded of the Puritan virtues, old man.”
“You missed your guess, then. You read a lot of American novels, Olive. Some day or other some writer’s goin’ to come along and write up an American country town like it is. The police will probably suppress the book.... My father and Gurdy’s mamma are sort of scared because I’ve got the kid at a rich school. You mustn’t believe all the stuff you see in the American magazines and papers about the wicked rich, Olive. I’ve met some of the rich roués at suppers and so on. Put any of ’em alongside some of the hired men and clerks and things that were in my regiment in Cuba—or alongside Tommy Grover that’s blacksmith at Fayettesville and they’d look like Sunday School teachers. I sort of wish the poor folks in the United States’d leave off yawping about the wicked rich and look after their own backyards a while! No, I don’t take any stock in this country virtue thing. The only girl in Fayettesville that ever run off with a wicked drummer had morals that’d scare a chorus girl stiff. Who’s the fellow that hangs ’round the stage door of a musical show? Nine times out of ten he’s a kid from the country that’s won twenty dollars at poker. Who’s the fellow that—well—seduces the poor working girl? Once in a hundred it’s a rich whelp in a dinner jacket. Rest of the time it’s the boy in the next flat. When I was acting and used to get mash notes from fool women, were they from women on Fifth Avenue or Park Avenue? Not much! Stenographers and ladies in Harlem that had husbands travelling a good deal. You believe in talking about these kind of things out loud and I expect you’re right.”
“Gurdy’s not handsome,” said Olive, “but he’s attractive—charming eyes—and women are going to like him a goodish bit, bye and bye. And man is fire. What moral precepts are you going to—”
“Just what my father told me. I’m going to tell him that he mustn’t make love to a married woman and that he mustn’t fool after an innocent girl unless he means matrimony—but God knows it’s getting pretty hard to tell what an innocent girl is, these days! Nine tenths of ’em dress like cocottes.”
“Old man, where did you pick up that very decent French accent?” Olive saw his blush slide fleetly from his collar to the red hair and added, “I hope it was honestly come by. You’re a good deal of a Puritan for a sensualist.”
“Oh ... I am a sensualist, I guess. But, I ain’t a hog.”
Olive said, “No, that’s quite true, my son. There’s nothing porcine about you. My brother has a house this season and he’s giving a dance tonight. There might be some pretty frocks.”
“Didn’t know you had a brother!”