Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/79

Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman to say: “My good man, don’t ask me! Refer your invitations to my cook. . .” He was such a boy that I never spoke to him as I truly honestly think he deserved. . . “Captain Laughton,” I said, “will you promise that, while I’m away, you won’t come here or try to see Lady Spenworth? She is in a position,” I said, “where you can easily compromise her; a severer critic might say that you had compromised her already. If you have her interests at heart, you have a chance of proving your friendship to her. . .” Am I unduly idealizing the past if I say that in my youth it would have been unnecessary to speak like that to any man? Captain Laughton was no longer a boy. . . Assuredly, in the school in which I was brought up, if one had spoken, one’s word would have been law. . . “Oh, Lady Ann, I’ve been talking to Kitty about that,” he answered. I think “jaunty” is the word to describe his manner; great assurance, good humour, no thought that any one would even dream of giving him a rebuff. “We were thinking,” he continued, “that it would be such fun if we could come too. I have a car, we wouldn’t get in your way; but we can hardly go off unattended, and I quite agree with what you say about not compromising Kitty in London.”

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