Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/348

338 "You can't afford to do that way, Sue," said Mrs. Bell, who was conservative by nature and training. "You 'll get talked about awfully, the first thing you know."

"Let them talk!" laughed Susan. "They 'll talk anyway. It might as well be about me."

"No, it might n't!" persisted Bell, who had her own reasons for laying stress on this point with Susan. "No, it might n't. I tell you, Sue, a woman can't afford to be talked about."

"Can't afford? What do you mean by that? How much does it cost?" said Susan, scornfully.

Mrs. Bell was not clever enough to answer Susan in her own phraseology, and say, "It costs loss of position, loss of the best regard of the best people, loss of absolute trust from men whose trust would be honor, and might be love;" she only said, meekly:—

"You know as well as I do, Sue, that nobody really thinks so well of a woman who is much talked about. I don't think a woman can be too careful, for my part; especially, Sue, women situated as you and I are; we have got to be very careful indeed."

This was an opportunity Mrs. Bell had been anxiously awaiting for a long time. She had felt that it was necessary to define their positions and have some such matters thoroughly understood in the outset of her life with Susan, but she had lacked moral courage to open the discussion.

"I 'm never going to be careful, as you call it,