Page:The Finer Grain (London, Methuen & Co., 1910).djvu/74

62 scarce conceivable way its present appearance, for it to strike her either as delicate or as a possible cause of delicacy. In fact she could have but her own word,—Mora was a monster.

"Well," he laughed,—quite brazen about it now,—"if she is it's because she has paid for it! Why the deuce did her stars, unless to make her worship gods entirely other than Jane Traffle's, rig her out with a name that puts such a premium on adventures? 'Mora Montravers,'—it paints the whole career for you! She is, one does feel, her name; but how couldn't she be? She'd dishonour it and its grand air if she weren't."

"Then by that reasoning you admit," Mrs Traffle returned with more of an argumentative pounce than she had perhaps ever achieved in her life, "that she is misconducting herself."

It pulled him up but ten seconds. "It isn't, love, that she's misconducting herself—it's that she's conducting, positively, and by her own lights doubtless quite responsibly, Miss Montravers through the preappointed circle of that young lady's experience." Jane turned on this a desolate back; but he only went on. "It would have been better for us perhaps if she could have been a Traffle,—but, failing that, I think I should, on the ground that sinning at all one should sin boldly, have elected for Montravers outright. That does the thing,—it gives the unmistakable note. And if 'Montravers' made it probable, 'Mora'—don't you see, dearest?—made it sure.