"Impertinent!"
Her tone, though light, had surely been coloured with apology.
"Well, people are so funny--now. I remember the time when lots of them were foolish in the opposite way. If I thought of them, they seemed to take it as an honour. But then I wasn't thirty-eight, and I was in society."
The German waiter came in with tea. When he had arranged it and gone out, Nigel said, with a certain diffidence: "I wonder you don't live in the country."
"I know what you mean. But you're wrong. One feels even more out of it there."
She gave him his cup gently, with a movement that implied care for his comfort, almost a thoughtful, happy service.
"The Rector is embarrassed, his wife appalled. The Doctor's 'lady,' much as she longs for one's guineas, tries to stop him even from attending one's dying bed. The Squire, though secretly interested to fervour, is of course a respectable man. He is a 'stay' to country morality, and his wife is a pair of stays. The neighbours respond in their dozens to the mot d'ordre, and there one is plantée, like a lonely white moon encircled by a halo of angry fire. Dear acquaintance, I've tried it. Egypt--Omaha--anything would be better. What are you eating? Have one of these little cakes. They really are good. I ordered them specially for you and our small festivity."
She was smiling as she handed him the plate.
"I should think Egypt would be better!" exclaimed Nigel, with a strength and a vehemence that contrasted almost startlingly with her light, half-laughing tone. "Why don't you go there? Why don't you try the free life?"
"Live among the tribes, like Lady Hester Stanhope in the Lebanon? I'm afraid I could never train myself to wear a turban. Besides, Egypt is fearfully civilized now. Every one goes there. I should be cut all up the Nile."
The brutality of her frankness startled and almost pained him. For a moment, in it he seemed to discern a lack of taste.
"You are right," she said; and suddenly the lightness died away altogether from her voice. "But how is one not to get blunted? And even long ago I always hated pretence. Women are generally pretending. And they are wise. I have never been wise. If I were wise, I should not let you see my lonely, stupid, undignified situation."
Suddenly she turned so that the light from the window fell full upon her, and lifted her veil up over the brim of her hat.
"Nor my face, upon which, of course, must be written all sorts of worries and sorrows. But I couldn't pretend at eighteen, nor can I at thirty-eight. No wonder so many men--the kind of men you meet at your club, at the Marlborough, or the Bachelors', or the Travellers'--call me an 'ass of a woman.' I am an ass of a woman, a little--little--ass."