Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
acquired during the war. I felt—pace her mother—that she was thoroughly well able to take care of herself. Except, perhaps, in dress. The first night she came down in a frock which hardly reached her knees and seemed to stop short at the waist—bare arms, bare shoulders, bare back; I was quite shocked for a moment when Will came into the drawing-room without knocking. . . However, so long as it did not set him against her. . . You see, I was simply not equal to taking her out to daily luncheons, dinners, plays, dances; inevitably a good deal devolved on Will, but he was truly sweet about it. . . Seeing how répandu he is. . .
At the same time, I was in a difficult position, for, while I never dreamed he would look at her as a wife, I should have liked him to establish some sort of claim on the girl’s father; and, if Will did not marry her, I was not doing much to help the Surdan fortunes. You know what men are! So long as Will was considered her natural protector, the others kept away for fear of “poaching”, as it were. I felt it was a pity for them to be about together so much. I’m not ashamed to call myself old-fashioned. . . And these garish new restaurants and poor Hilda’s “uniform undress”, as Will rather wittily expressed it, made them very conspicuous. . .
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