"I feel that this is a crisis," he began as he gloomily shook my hand.
"Where is our boasted twentieth-century culture if outrages like this
are permitted? For the first time I understand how these Western
communities have in the past resorted to mob violence. Public feeling
is already running high against the creature and her unspeakable set."
I met this outburst with the serenity of one who holds the winning
cards in his hand, and begged him to be seated. Thereupon I disclosed
to him the weakly, susceptible nature of the Honourable George,
reciting the incidents of the typing-girl and the Brixton milliner. I
added that now, as before, I should not hesitate to preserve the
family honour.
"A dreadful thing, indeed," he murmured, "if that adventuress should
trap him into a marriage. Imagine her one day a Countess of Brinstead!
But suppose the fellow prove stubborn; suppose his infatuation dulls
all his finer instincts?"
I explained that the Honourable George, while he might upon the spur
of the moment commit a folly, was not to be taken too seriously; that
he was, I believed, quite incapable of a grand passion. I mean to say,
he always forgot them after a few days. More like a child staring into
shop-windows he was, rapidly forgetting one desired object in the
presence of others.
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