Dartrey looked at the door closing on the girl.

‘Is it a very low woman?’ Nataly asked him in a Church whisper, with a face abashed.

‘It is not,’ said he, quick to meet any abruptness.

‘She must be cunning.’

‘In the ordinary way.  We say it of Puss before the hounds.’

‘To deceive a girl like Nesta!’

‘She has done no harm.’

‘Dartrey, you speak to a mother.  You have seen the woman?  She is?—­ah!’

‘She is womanly, womanly.’

‘Quite one of those . . . ?’

’My dear soul!  You can’t shake them off in that way.  She is one of us.  If we have the class, we can’t escape from it.  They are not to bear all the burden because they exist.  We are the bigger debtors.  I tell you she is womanly.’

‘It sounds like horrid cynicism.’

‘Friends of mine would abuse it for the reverse.’

’Do not make me hate your chivalry.  This woman is a rod on my back.  Provided only she has not dropped venom into Nesta’s mind!’

‘Don’t fear!’

‘Can you tell me you think she has done no harm to my girl?’

‘To Nesta herself?—­not any:  not to a girl like your girl.’

’To my girl’s name?  Speak at once.  But I know she has.  She induced Nesta to go to her house.  My girl was insulted in this woman’s house.’

Dartrey’s forehead ridged with his old fury and a gust of present contempt.  ’I can tell you this, that the fellow who would think harm of it, knowing the facts ’s not worthy of touching the tips of the fingers of your girl.’

‘She is talked of!’

’A good-looking girl out riding with a handsome woman on a parade of idlers!’

‘The woman is notorious.’  Nataly said it shivering.

He shook his head.  ‘Not true.’

‘She has an air of a lady?’

‘She sits a horse well.’

‘Would she to any extent deceive me—­impose on me here?’

‘No.’

‘Ah!’ Nataly moaned. . . .

‘But what?’ said Dartrey.  ’There was no pretence.  Her style is not worse than that of some we have seen.  There was no effort to deceive.  The woman’s plain for you and me to read, she has few of the arts; one or two tricks, if you like:  and these were not needed for use.  There are women who have them, and have not been driven or let slip into the wilderness.’

‘Yes; I know!—­those ideas of yours!’ Nataly had once admired him for his knightliness toward the weakest women and the women underfoot.  ’You have spoken to this woman?  She boasted of acquaintance with Nesta?’

‘She thanked God for having met her.’

‘Is it one of the hysterical creatures?’

Mrs. Marsett appeared fronting Dartrey.

He laughed to himself.  ’A clever question.  There is a leaning to excitement of manner at times.  It ’s not hysteria.  Allow for her position.’

Nataly took the unintended blow, and bowed to it; and still more harshly said:  ‘What rank of life does the woman come from?’