Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/220

 so jaded. Perhaps in the world in which she was reared. . . I certainly notice marked civility and almost affection if Ruth hears that I am giving a party and that the princess has graciously consented to be present. My niece Phyllida is less punctilious in her courtesy; there is rather too much of the “Oh-I-don’t-care-what-I-do” attitude about her, and, since she found that her cabman hero was still alive and somewhere in London. . . A curious recklessness and restlessness. . . I invited her because I cannot bear to see a girl—young, well-connected, rich, good-looking—simply moping. . . They say it takes two to make a quarrel, and I have refused to quarrel with Phyllida, so that at last I think she has ceased to believe that I turned the cabman hero against her in the hope of keeping her for my boy. I—have—not—lifted—a—finger! She evidently enjoys being with Will; and, if he wanted to marry her, I should not stand in the way. Ever since that Morecambe nightmare began, I have felt that I shall never know a moment’s peace until he is safely married. . . I don’t want him to go abroad. . . When any one in his position seeks his fortune in a foreign country, there is always a tendency among some people to ask what he has done, to treat him as a remittance-man. . . which is