Yet her legs were bare-and crossed, too-and that Gerry perched on an ottoman right in front of her. And the man had such informal ways of twisting her legs-you see, I can say the awful word now-while he worked on her feet. And I knew, Stanley Cochrane-and you knew-that she had practically nothing on! She’s as nice as a girl can be, my sister, but I can’t accustom myself to such changes in what is thought proper! Grandmother would fully have expected you to take both those men by the neck, knock their heads together and push them out, especially as one couldn’t help seeing how impertinent their eyes were and how they kept trying to see more. And as for Mildred, she would have put her on bread and water, even if she is twenty-two and married!”

“Well, well, well!” ejaculated the smiling Stanley. “We’ve got the young nun to unburden her mind, haven’t we? But what are a few legs, Maro, dear, between friends? It is exactly that preoccupation with concealment, with artificial, silly conventions that made the generations of your grandmother and our parents about as nasty-minded a crew as the world ever saw. The chance view of the lace on a pair of drawers and maybe a bit of girlish skin beneath it would send a fellow into convulsions in those days. And if a male statue wore only a fig leaf the mind of the female observer was instantly at work with dire imaginings of what lay beneath!”

“Stanley, how can you be so gross!” exclaimed the flushed Marion. “Oh, I know you don’t mean to be insulting, that it’s just this new broadmindedness, I suppose you all call it. But that reminds me…”

A new grievance to be discussed with her novel father confessor took her mind from his own offence.

“They’re forever cracking horrid jokes,” she said, “all these young people, married or unmarried. Everybody laughs and then I watch them watching me to see how soon I will catch the wretched point and to see me blush when I do.