Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/80

 "She has you to advise her," laughed Helen; "and as you are a clever, rising barrister, I should have thought you would have been wise enough to have prevented her telegraphing for her lover."

"He is not her lover," shouted Jacynth loudly.

"As to her extreme youth," pursued his sister, unmoved at his interruption, "she has a child old enough to play cricket on the green with the tinkers and the tailors and the butcher boys of the place. She must surely be out of her teens! And if she does not know how to behave herself now, I am afraid she never will."

"Why are you so hard, Helen?" he asked, looking at his sister in surprise.

"I am not hard," she answered, "but I really fail to see why you require my aid. Lady Francis seems quite able to take care* of herself. The fact is, Clitheroe," she continued, "you must know as well as I do that the lex talionis does not apply to husbands and wives. It is only in quite the lower classes that the wife throws back the sugar basin at her husband when he has aimed at her with the teapot. Men have a certain license with regard to flirtation which has always been denied to women. It may be wrong—I dare say it is—but I am not going to head any movement to bring about a change."

"I think she would listen to you if you would ask her to send M. de Mürger back to town," said