Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/202

 in that class I gather it is only natural for every girl to have some benevolent elderly protector who takes her out to dinner and gives her little presents. If it had not been Arthur, I was to understand, it would have been some one else. I confess that her ingenuousness rang a little hollow when she betrayed how intimately and accurately she knew who he was—the connection with Spenworth on one side and with Brackenbury on the other; like the rest of them, she hunted with one quarry—or one type of quarry—definitely in view. . . After the little presents came the big presents—dresses, jewellery and sums of money which she did not specify. One thought of the rags that one had worn oneself during the war. . . No shame in telling me about that! She had nothing of her own except this house which the husband had left her, and Arthur would have been hurt if she had refused. . . So charming! So delicate—on both sides. . . By and by Arthur seems to have become more exacting, but the girl vowed again that she kept him at arm’s length—knowing her own value, one presumes. I did not enquire very closely into this aspect of the campaign, as I knew only too well what was coming. When everything else failed, he would have to offer her marriage—by way of the Divorce Court.