Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/22

 count for nothing? Or gratitude? You shall hear! You remember that, when you left just before my operation, Brackenbury came in to see me. I had sent for him. I am not a nervous woman; but accidents do happen, and I wanted a last word with them all in case. . . just in case. . . Arthur never takes a thought for the future, and I told Brackenbury that, if anything did happen, he would be the real as well as the titular head of the family.

“It is not for me,” I said, “to advise or interfere with you or Ruth or your children. If—as I pray—Culroyd comes through unscathed, he has all the world before him, and you have only to see that he does not marry below his station. With Phyllida you must be more careful. She is young, attractive, well-dowered and a little, just a little headstrong. The war has made our girls quite absurdly romantic; any one in uniform, especially if he has been wounded. . . And you, who are rich, perhaps hardly realize as well as do we, who are poor, the tricks and crimes that a man will commit to marry a fortune. I do not suggest that Phyllida should be withdrawn from her hospital—”

“Oh, she’s signed on for the duration of the war,” Brackenbury interrupted.