Part 64

“You’ll drop out of it,” Kitty now pursued.

“Into what shall I drop?”

“Just being asked to the big things everybody goes to and nobody counts. For even with the way Charley has arranged about the phosphates, it will not be enough to keep you in our swim--just by itself. He’ll weigh more than his money, because he’ll stay different--too different.”

“He was not so different last summer.”

“Because he was not there long enough, my dear. He learned bridge quickly, and of course he had seen champagne before, and nobody had time to notice him. But he’ll be married now and they will notice him, and they won’t want him. To think of your dropping out!” Kitty became very earnest. “To think of not seeing you among us! You’ll be in none of the small things; you’ll never be asked to stay at the smart houses--why, not even your name will be in the paper! Not a foreigner you entertain, not a dinner you give, not a thing you wear, will ever be described next morning. And Charley’s so set on you, and you’re so just exactly made for each other, and it would all be so splendid, and cosey, and jolly! And to throw all this away for that crude boy!” Kitty’s disdain was high at the thought of John.

Hortense took a little time over it “Once,” she then stated, “he told me he could drown in my hair as joyfully as the Duke of Clarence did in his butt of Malmsey wine!”

Kitty gave a little scream. “Did you let him?”

“One has to guard one’s value at times.”

Kitty’s disdain for John increased. “How crude!”

Hortense did not make any answer.

“How crude!” Kitty, after some silence, repeated. She seemed to have found the right word.

Steps sounded upon the bridge, and the voice of Gazza cried out that the stupid key was at the imbecile club-house, whither he was now going for it, and not to be alarmed. Their voices answered reassuringly, and Gazza was heard growing distant, singing some little song.

Kitty was apparently unable to get away from John’s crudity. “He actually said that?”

“Yes.”

“Where was it? Tell me about it, Hortense.”

“We were walking in the country on that occasion.”

Kitty still lingered with it. “Did he look--I’ve never had any man--I wonder if--how did you feel?”

“Not disagreeably.” And Hortense permitted herself to laugh musically.

Kitty’s voice at once returned to the censorious tone. “Well, I call such language as that very--very--”

Hortense helped her. “Operatic?”

“He could never be taught in those ways either,” declared Kitty. “You would find his ardor always untrained--provincial.”

Once more Hortense abstained from making any answer.

Kitty grew superior. “Well, if that’s to your taste, Hortense Rieppe!”

“It was none of it like Charley,” murmured Hortense.

“I should think not! Charley’s not crude. What do you see in that man?”

“I like the way his hair curls above his ears.”

For this Kitty found nothing but an impatient exclamation.

And now the voice of Hortense sank still deeper in dreaminess,--down to where the truth lay; and from those depths came the truth, flashing upward through the drowsy words she spoke: “I think I want him for his innocence.”