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Updated: May 29, 2025
"My dear Una," she said, "you don't in the least understand what it's all about!" Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. "Don't YOU, then?" she murmured. Mrs. Westall laughed. "Not always or altogether! But I should like some tea, please." Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed. As Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl more carefully.
She met them now, but only, as she felt, in transit; they included her parenthetically in a larger flight. She followed the flight, and it carried her to a corner to which Una had withdrawn one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van Sideren attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later, had overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl's side.
She told herself that it was because she looked badly because he knew about the doctor and the nerve tonic that he showed this deference to her wishes, this eagerness to screen her from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the way for fresh inferences. The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren.
It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed upon herself Mrs. Westall's wandering resentment. In the first place, the girl had no business to be there. It was "horrid" Mrs. Westall found herself slipping back into the old feminine vocabulary simply "horrid" to think of a young girl's being allowed to listen to such talk.
Of late, however, he had shown a puzzling tendency to dogmatize, to throw down the gauntlet, to flaunt his private code in the face of society; and the relation of the sexes being a topic always sure of an audience, a few admiring friends had persuaded him to give his after-dinner opinions a larger circulation by summing them up in a series of talks at the Van Sideren studio.
"I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such things never are discussed before young girls; but that is beside the point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl in my audience to-day " "Except Una Van Sideren!" He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow. "Oh, Miss Van Sideren naturally " "Why naturally?"
His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion. "To marry some one else?" Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him. "Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?" He was silent. "I wish you good luck," she said. She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there.
She told herself that it was because she looked badly because he knew about the doctor and the nerve tonic that he showed this deference to her wishes, this eagerness to screen her from moral draughts; but the explanation simply cleared the way for fresh inferences. The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On Saturday the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren.
Van Sideren, for her part, was skilled in making the most of the kind of atmosphere which a lay-figure and an easel create; and if at times she found the illusion hard to maintain, and lost courage to the extent of almost wishing that Herbert could paint, she promptly overcame such moments of weakness by calling in some fresh talent, some extraneous re-enforcement of the "artistic" impression.
"The daughter of the house would you have had her sent out with her governess?" "If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my house!" Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. "I fancy Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself." "No girl knows how to take care of herself till it's too late."
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