self--that's better than asking another woman; especially as
you pretend to study folk."

"Oh your judgement wouldn't probably at all determine mine. It's as
bearing on _you_ I ask it." Which, however, demanded explanation, so
that I was duly frank; confessing myself curious as to how far maternal
immorality would go.

It made her at first but repeat my words. "Maternal immorality?"

"You desire your son to have every possible distraction on his voyage,
and if you can make up your mind in the sense I refer to that will make
it all right. He'll have no responsibility."

"Heavens, how you analyse!" she cried. "I haven't in the least your
passion for making up my mind."

"Then if you chance it," I returned, "you'll be more immoral still."

"Your reasoning's strange," said Mrs. Nettlepoint; "when it was you who
tried to put into my head yesterday that she had asked him to come."

"Yes, but in good faith."

"What do you mean, in such a case, by that?"

"Why, as girls of that sort do. Their allowance and measure in such
matters," I expounded, "is much larger than that of young persons who
have been, as you say, _very_ well brought up; and yet I'm not sure that
on the whole I don't think them thereby the more innocent. Miss Mavis is
engaged, and she's to be married next week, but it's an old old story,
and there's no more romance in it than if she were going to be
photographed. So her usual life proceeds, and her usual life
consists--and that of _ces demoiselles_ in general--in having plenty of
gentlemen's society. Having it I mean without having any harm from it."

Mrs. Nettlepoint had given me due attention. "Well, if there's no harm
from it what are you talking about and why am I immoral?"

I hesitated, laughing. "I retract--you're sane and clear. I'm sure she
thinks there won't be any harm," I added. "That's the great point."

"The great point?"

"To be settled, I mean."

"Mercy, we're not trying them!" cried my friend. "How can _we_ settle
it?"

"I mean of course in our minds. There will be nothing more interesting
these next ten days for our minds to exercise themselves upon."

"Then they'll get terribly tired of it," said Mrs. Nettlepoint.

"No, no--because the interest will increase and the plot will thicken. It
simply can't _not_," I insisted. She looked at me as if she thought me
more than Mephistophelean, and I went back to something she had lately
mentioned. "So she told you ev