it, as one can grow used to anything, but people would remark on it adversely. The lady of the green hat said nothing, and that was how I knew that for her everything was in{40}evitable. That is an important thing to know about a woman, for you know then that you will never know where you are.
{40}
We became personal. She said: “Let us talk about our friends now.”
“To-night,” I said, “I have been to a party at the Hallidays’.”
“Ah, the pitiless vulgarians! Surely, between us, we can do better than that!”
“There’s Hilary....”
“The sweet! Can you not love Hilary? But to-night,” she said very seriously, “I have been dining with old Maurice Harpenden. How he would hate me to say old! I went out all the way to Sutton Marle to do that, because he expects it of me when I am in England. We are enemies, and we watch each other. He was very courtly. They are difficult to deal with, handsome old men who have known one since one was so high. You need to be a woman to know what I mean, but you must try to pretend for a minute. Thank you. Organically, of course, they are perfect. Good features and long legs and iron-grey hair. Character and clothes by Robert Hichens. They are very courtly, and then they touch one. Now, why do they do that? They pretend to do it in a friendly way, as any gentleman of the old school might to the daughter of another gentleman of the old school: but they make opportunities....” The husky voice committed suicide, was buried, and in the third second rose from the dead. “I do not understand men. I do not understand the ‘old school’ type of man, nor what ‘old school’ means, unless it means that you never did any{41}thing at school except win the Battle of Waterloo. Then as soon as you left school you were qualified by good-looks, a charm of manner, and a habit of becoming popular with elderly men which is peculiar to right-minded young Englishmen, to become Major-General Sir Maurice Harpenden, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., and to lead your troops in battle with that gallant inefficiency patented by English infantry-commanders who know a good horse when they see one. After which you can spend the rest of your life in bantering. You can see that I do not like Maurice. We dine, and we are enemies, and we watch each other.”
{41}
“The sire doesn’t seem very like the son. Napier is a saint....”
The chair creaked. She was looking
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