“They don’t find out, and they don’t ask; the young people manage their own affairs first, and leave the parents to fight over settlements afterwards.”
“And if it turns out there is nothing to settle on either side? Suppose the young folk have become engaged without any money between them?”
“That is their affair; they must get out of it as well as they can.”
“And the young lady’s name is compromised, and if she loves the man she breaks her heart and dies! Very sensible and very pretty indeed!”
“Tut! tut! They don’t die off so easily as all that, pretty dears! Every girl I know has had her little romance before she marries; and all the better for it. It takes the nonsense out of a girl to be crossed in love.”
“How shocking!” cried Mme. Léopold, lifting up her hands. “With us a young girl goes to the altar with the virgin bloom of her heart untouched.”
“Pish! Don’t talk such stuff to me, my dear lady,” said Mrs. Monteagle with a contemptuous grunt. “Virgin bloom, forsooth! You marry your daughters before they are out of the nursery, while they are ignorant babies that have had no time to develop either mind or heart or character. And what comes of it half the time? When one sees the way you French people arrange your marriages, the wonder is that you are not ten times worse than you are—ten times worse!”
There was plenty of noise in the room, and, what between Polly’s performance on the piano and the general buzz of voices all round, there was little danger of the private conference being overheard; still, Mme. Léopold cast nervous glances on either side while Mrs. Monteagle thus denounced the evil courses of the French people.
“Then you decline to be my intermediary in this matter?” said the disappointed mother, lowering her voice to the most confidential tone.
“I decline to commit an impertinence that would lead to my being shown to the door—and very properly; but I shall be most happy to convey the offer of your son’s hand to my young friend Pearl, if you and he honor me with the mission.”