and telling the credulous it was brigs or
schooners--was it fair to expose Mrs. Iggulden to this gilt-spectacled
lob-worm? Sally didn't know that Mrs. Iggulden could show a proper
spirit, because in her own case the conditions had never been
favourable. They had practised no incantations.

"Very well, then, Mrs. Vereker. As soon as ever mamma and I have
shaken down, we'll see about Iggulden's; and if they can't take you
somebody else will."

"I am in your hands," said the Goody, smiling faintly and
submissively. She leaned back with her eyes closed, and was afraid
she had done too much. She used to have periodical convictions to
that effect.

Sally had an appointment with Laetitia Wilson at the swimming bath,
so the Goody, in an access of altruism, perceived that she mustn't
keep her. She herself would try to rest a little.

* * * * *

All people, as we suppose, lead two lives, more or less--their outer
life, that of the world and action, and an inner life they have all
to themselves. But how different is the proportion of the two lives
in different subjects! And how much less painful the latter life is
when we feel we could tell it all if we chose. Only we don't choose,
because it's no concern of yours or any one else's.

This was Sally's frame of mind. She would not have felt the ghost of
a reserve of an inmost thought (from her mother, for instance) in the
face of questions asked, though she kept her own counsel about many
points whose elucidation was not called for. It may easily be that
Rosalind asked no questions about some things, because she had no wish
that her daughter should formulate their answers too decisively. Her
relation with Conrad Vereker, for example. Was it love, or what? If
there was to be marrying, and families, and that sort of thing, and
possible interference with swimming-matches and athletics, and so on,
would she as soon choose this man for her accomplice as any other she
knew? Suppose she was to hear to-morrow that Dr. Vereker was engaged
to Sylvia Peplow, would she be glad or sorry?

Rosalind certainly did ask no such questions. If she had, the answers
to the first two would have been, we surmise, very clear and decisive.
What nonsense! Fancy Prosy being in love with anybody, or anybody
being in love with Prosy! And as for marrying, the great beauty of it
all was that there was to be no marrying. Did he understand that? Oh
dear, yes! Prosy understood