"Your father, for instance?"
"Is this going to be a pill for you?" she enquired, with slightly
wrinkled forehead. "He was professor of English at Dresden University.
We were all living there when the war broke out, but he was such a
favourite that they let us go to Paris. He died there, the week after
peace was declared. My mother still lives at Versailles. She was
governess to Lady Clanarton's grandchildren, hence my presence yesterday
in those aristocratic circles."
"And you live here alone?"
"With my secretary--the fuzzyhaired young person who was just getting
rid of Mr. Miller for me when you arrived. We are a terribly advanced
couple, in our ideas, but we lead a thoroughly reputable life. I
sometimes think," she went on, with a sigh, "that all one's tendencies
towards the unusual can be got rid of in opinions. Susan, for
instance--that is my secretary's name--pronounces herself unblushingly
in favour of free love, but I don't think she has ever allowed a man to
kiss her in her life."
"Your own opinions?" he asked curiously. "I suppose they, too, are a
little revolutionary, so far as regards our social laws?"
"I dare not even define them," she acknowledged, "they are so entirely
negative.
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