attraction. 'I find the young lady very tolerable, very creditable,
very nice. I find the relation atrocious. There you have it. I
would like to break the relation into pieces,' I went on recklessly,
'and throw it into the sea. Such things should be tempered to one.
I should feel it much less if she occupied another cabin, and would
consent to call me Elizabeth or Jane. It is not as if I had been
her mother always. One grows fastidious at forty--new intimacies
are only possible then on a basis of temperament--'

I paused; it seemed to me that I was making excuses, and I had not
the least desire in the world to do that.

'How awfully rough on the girl!' said Dacres Tottenham.

'That consideration has also occurred to me,' I said candidly,
'though I have perhaps been even more struck by its converse.'

'You had no earthly business to be her mother,' said my friend, with
irritation.

I shrugged my shoulders--what would you have done?--and opened 'La
Duchesse Bleue'.



Chapter 1.III

Mrs. Morgan, wife of a judge of the High Court of Bombay, and I sat
amidships on the cool side in the Suez Canal. She was outlining
'Soiled Linen' in chain-stitch on a green canvas bag; I was admiring