A provoking evasion.  He would rather have seen antagonism bridle and stiffen her figure.  ‘Is one of them from that gentleman?’

’One is from my dear friend Louise de Seilles.  She comes to me early next month.’

‘The other?’

‘The other is also from a friend.’

‘A dear friend?’

‘Not so dear.  Her letter gives me happiness.’

‘She writes—­not from France:  from . . .? you tempt me to guess.’

’She writes to tell me, that Mr. Dartrey Fenellan has helped her in a way to make her eternally thankful.’

‘The place she writes from is . . . ?’

The drag of his lips betrayed his enlightenment insisted on doubting.  He demanded assurance.

‘It matters in no degree,’ she said.

Dudley ‘thought himself excusable for inquiring.’

She bowed gently.

The stings and scorpions and degrading itches of this nest of wealthy Bohemians enraged him.

’Are you—­I beg to ask—­are you still:—­I can hardly think it—­Nesta!—­ I surely have a claim to advise:—­it cannot be with your mother’s consent:—­in communication, in correspondence with . . . ?’

Again she bowed her head; saying:  ‘It is true.’

‘With that person?’

He could not but look the withering disgust of the modern world in a conservative gentleman who has been lured to go with it a little way, only to be bitten.  ‘I decline to believe it,’ he said with forcible sound.

‘She is married,’ was the rather shameless, exasperating answer.

‘Married or not!’ he cried, and murmured:  ’I have borne—.  These may be Mr. Dartrey Fenellan’s ideas; they are not mine.  I have—­Something at least is due to me:  Ask any lady:—­there are clergymen, I know, clergymen who are for uplifting—­quite right, but not associating:—­to call one of them a friend!  Ask any lady, any!  Your mother . . .’

‘I beg you will not distress my mother,’ said Nesta.

‘I beg to know whether this correspondence is to continue?’ said Dudley.

‘All my life, if I do not feel dishonoured by it.’

‘You are.’  He added hastily:  ’Counsels of prudence—­there is not a lady living who would tell you otherwise.  At all events, in public opinion, if it were known—­and it would certainly be known,—­a lady, wife or spinster, would suffer—­would not escape the—­at least shadow of defilement from relationship, any degree of intimacy with . . . hard words are wholesome in such a case:  “touch pitch,” yes!  My sense is coherent.’

‘Quite,’ said Nesta.

‘And you do not agree with me?’

‘I do not.’

‘Do you pretend to be as able to judge as I?’

‘In this instance, better.’

’Then I retire.  I cannot retain my place here.  You may depend upon it, the world is not wrong when it forbids young ladies to have cognizance of women leading disorderly lives.’