nitrogenous extract of something or other from a cup.
Once I made a remark to the effect that they would have to get a fresh
nurse when they got home. Mrs. Evans bridled. She drew down the corners
of her mouth and remarked that in future she would look after Babs
herself.

"'But,' I said, 'if you could get a girl like Miss Macedoine.' Mrs.
Evans kept her gaze on Babs, who was staring at me over the rim of the
cup with her bold, protuberant black eyes like those of some marine
animal.

"'No,' she said, 'girls like that are too much trouble.'

"'You mean--followers?' I suggested. Mrs. Evans turned red and moved
slightly.

"'She wasn't nice,' she replied, coldly, and pronounced it 'neyce.'

"'Oh,' I said, 'I wasn't aware you knew.' She got redder.

"'I don't know what you are talking about,' she muttered. 'As far as I
could see, she was very fortunate in getting her passage out free, very
fortunate. She was not neyce with Babs. Babs didn't take to her.
Children _know_!'

"'Still,' I said, looking at the omniscient Babs lying back in repletion
and trying to decide upon some fresh demand, 'Still, I felt sorry for
her, a pretty creature like that, at a dangerous age, you know...' I
had to stop, for Mrs. Evans' usually pale features were a dull brick
red. Her head was drawn back and she became rigid with disapproval. This
is what I mean when I say such women wield enormous power. They are
panoplied in prejudice and conventional purity. Mrs. Evans was like
that. She was safe. She was a pure woman. I looked at her thin, peaked
little features as she replaced the blanket about the kicking limbs of
the angel child and thought of that girl with her bright, defiant,
derisive smile challenging me to high adventure. Mrs. Evans' function in
life was not to challenge but to disapprove. She could endure no
discussion of the fundamentals. She could read tales of passion and
rape, and not a flicker of emotion would cross that pallid face. But
there must be no spoken word. Instinctively she drew back and became
rigid, protecting her immaculate soul and the angel child from the
faintest breath of reality. In that flat bosom raged a hatred, a horror,
of beauty and the desire of it--a conviction that it was neither good
nor evil, but simply strange, foreign, unknown, unsuitable; incompatible
with the semi-detached house on the Portsmouth Road whose photograph
hung on the bulkhead behind her. There was something shocking in the
contras