“I know it, Lyra—I know it. But you have no right to keep him from taking a fancy to some young girl—and marrying her; to keep him to yourself; to make people talk.”
“There's something in that,” Lyra assented, with impartiality. “But I don't think it would be well for Jack to marry yet; and if I see him taking a fancy to any real nice girl, I sha'n't interfere with him. But I shall be very particular, Annie.”
She looked at Annie with such a droll mock earnest, and shook her head with such a burlesque of grandmotherly solicitude, that Annie laughed in spite of herself. “Oh, Lyra, Lyra!”
“And as for me,” Lyra went on, “I assure you I don't care for the little bit of harm it does me.”
“But you ought—you ought!” cried Annie. “You ought to respect yourself enough to care. You ought to respect other women enough.”
“Oh, I guess I'd let the balance of the sex slide, Annie,” said Lyra.
“No, you mustn't; you can't. We are all bound together; we owe everything to each other.”
“Isn't that rather Peckish?” Lyra suggested.
“I don't know. But it's true, Lyra. And I shouldn't be ashamed of getting it from Mr. Peck.”
“Oh, I didn't say you would be.”