Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
“If they were all like him, the army might be proud of them.”
“All I’ve met are like him,” said Phyllida, “only of course not so much so.”
I was struggling to find a meaning—Phyllida expresses herself almost as carelessly as her poor mother, but with hardly her mother’s excuse—, when she began to pour out a catalogue of his virtues: he had won a Military Cross and a Distinguished Service Order with a bar, he was the youngest colonel in the army, I don’t know what else.
“Who are his people?,” I asked.
A name like Butler is so very misleading; it may be all right—or it may not.
“I really don’t know,” said Phyllida, “and, what’s more, I don’t care. . .”
She was prattling away, but I thought it time to make one or two enquiries. I remember saying to poor Ruth—I forget in what connection; life is one long succession of these needless, irritating little encounters—I remember saying that Phyllida was in the position of a girl with no mother. It’s not that Ruth and Brackenbury aren’t fond of her, but they take no trouble. . . I asked what our young paragon’s regiment was, and you’ll hardly believe me if I tell you that it was one I had never heard of. Will knew, of course, but then,
32
