It is all very well for you to
talk of to-the-point confessions and plain statements, but
practically, if a girl were to talk as frankly as you would like, I
am afraid the idea of modesty would rather come to grief."
"Oh! modesty," I said impatiently, "be--Modesty! It's all very well
as a pretty, becoming, every-day fashion, but it should be laid
aside in the serious matters of life. It is an artificiality;
admirable, useful, excellent as a daily conventional rule, but it
should yield when there is a great natural question at issue.
Modesty! a fictitious, artificial, inculcated shame to intrude
itself between two people considering gravely the vital matter of
their love, their union, their future life! It's preposterous!"
"It very often does so," remarked Dick. "I am not saying whether it
should or it shouldn't."
"No," I answered more calmly; "and I entirely see what you mean, and
I think you are perfectly right there. Lucia is steeped in fashion,
soaked through with the prejudice and bringing up of her own rank.
And I suppose I do like it and expect it, certainly, as a general
rule; only, when the thing on hand is very important, and a society
woman fences with you behind a screen of elegant, delicate language,
you feel sometimes you would prefer the intelligible candour of a
kitchen maid."
Dick laughed.
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