THE AWKWARD AGE
must either have been of the school that knew, don't you know? a deuce of a deal before, or of the type that takes it all more quietly after."
"I think a woman can only speak for herself. I took it all quietly enough, both before and after," said Mrs. Brook. Then she addressed to Mr. Cashmore, with small formal nod, one of her lovely wan smiles. "What I'm talking about, s'il vous plâit, is marriage."
"I wonder if you know," the Duchess broke out on this, "how silly you all sound! When did it ever, in any society that could call itself decently 'good,' not make a difference that an innocent young creature, a flower tended and guarded, should find from one day to the other her whole situation changed? People pull long faces and look wonderful looks and punch each other, in your English fashion, in the sides and say to each other in corners that my poor darling has 'come out.' Je crois bien, she has come out! I married her—I don't mind saying it now—exactly that she should, and I should be mightily ashamed of every one concerned if she hadn't. I didn't marry her, I give you to believe, that she should stay 'in,' and if any of you think to frighten Mitchy with it I imagine you'll do so as little as you frighten me. If it has taken her a very short time—as Harold so vividly puts it—to which of you did I ever pretend, I should like to know, that it would take her a very long one? I dare say there are girls it would have taken longer, just as there are certainly others who wouldn't have required so much as an hour. It surely isn't news to you that if some young persons among us all are very stupid and others very wise, my dear child was never either, but only perfectly bred and deliciously clever. Ah, that—rather! If she's so clever that you don't know what to do with her, it's scarcely her fault. But add to it that Mitchy's very kind, and you have the whole thing. What more do you want?"
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