If you took more exercise and a more
intelligent interest in your neighbors you would--"
"Be as much loved as Mrs.
intelligent interest in your neighbors you would--"
"Be as much loved as Mrs.
Kipling - Poems
"
"And yet you encourage them? "
"What can I do? They talk. I listen, and they vow that I am sympathetic.
I know I always profess astonishment even when the plot is--of the most
old possible. "
"Yes. Men are so unblushingly explicit if they are once allowed to talk,
whereas women's confidences are full of reservations and fibs, except"--
"When they go mad and babble of the Unutterabilities after a week's
acquaintance. Really, if you come to consider, we know a great deal more
of men than of our own sex. "
"And the extraordinary thing is that men will never believe it. They say
we are trying to hide something. "
"They are generally doing that on their own account. Alas! These
chocolates pall upon me, and I haven't eaten more than a dozen. I think
I shall go to sleep. "
"Then you'll get fat dear.
If you took more exercise and a more
intelligent interest in your neighbors you would--"
"Be as much loved as Mrs. Hauksbee. You're a darling in many ways and I
like you--you are not a woman's woman--but why do you trouble yourself
about mere human beings? "
"Because in the absence of angels, who I am sure would be horribly dull,
men and women are the most fascinating things in the whole wide world,
lazy one. I am interested in The Dowd--I am interested in The Dancing
Master--I am interested in the Hawley Boy--and I am interested in you. "
"Why couple me with the Hawley Boy? He is your property. "
"Yes, and in his own guileless speech, I'm making a good thing out
of him. When he is slightly more reformed, and has passed his Higher
Standard, or whatever the authorities think fit to exact from him, I
shall select a pretty little girl, the Holt girl, I think, and"--here
she waved her hands airily--"'whom Mrs. Hauksbee hath joined together
let no man put asunder. ' That's all. "
"And when you have yoked May Holt with the most notorious detrimental
in Simla, and earned the undying hatred of Mamma Holt, what will you do
with me, Dispenser of the Destinies of the Universe? "
Mrs. Hauksbee dropped into a low chair in front of the fire, and, chin
in band, gazed long and steadfastly at Mrs. Mallowe.
"I do not know," she said, shaking her head, "what I shall do with you,
dear.
"And yet you encourage them? "
"What can I do? They talk. I listen, and they vow that I am sympathetic.
I know I always profess astonishment even when the plot is--of the most
old possible. "
"Yes. Men are so unblushingly explicit if they are once allowed to talk,
whereas women's confidences are full of reservations and fibs, except"--
"When they go mad and babble of the Unutterabilities after a week's
acquaintance. Really, if you come to consider, we know a great deal more
of men than of our own sex. "
"And the extraordinary thing is that men will never believe it. They say
we are trying to hide something. "
"They are generally doing that on their own account. Alas! These
chocolates pall upon me, and I haven't eaten more than a dozen. I think
I shall go to sleep. "
"Then you'll get fat dear.
If you took more exercise and a more
intelligent interest in your neighbors you would--"
"Be as much loved as Mrs. Hauksbee. You're a darling in many ways and I
like you--you are not a woman's woman--but why do you trouble yourself
about mere human beings? "
"Because in the absence of angels, who I am sure would be horribly dull,
men and women are the most fascinating things in the whole wide world,
lazy one. I am interested in The Dowd--I am interested in The Dancing
Master--I am interested in the Hawley Boy--and I am interested in you. "
"Why couple me with the Hawley Boy? He is your property. "
"Yes, and in his own guileless speech, I'm making a good thing out
of him. When he is slightly more reformed, and has passed his Higher
Standard, or whatever the authorities think fit to exact from him, I
shall select a pretty little girl, the Holt girl, I think, and"--here
she waved her hands airily--"'whom Mrs. Hauksbee hath joined together
let no man put asunder. ' That's all. "
"And when you have yoked May Holt with the most notorious detrimental
in Simla, and earned the undying hatred of Mamma Holt, what will you do
with me, Dispenser of the Destinies of the Universe? "
Mrs. Hauksbee dropped into a low chair in front of the fire, and, chin
in band, gazed long and steadfastly at Mrs. Mallowe.
"I do not know," she said, shaking her head, "what I shall do with you,
dear.
