"That sounds impertinent," she said coldly.
"Not at all; it's good business. If I'm to put over anything worth while, I shall have to work along my own lines. I can't afford to have my style cramped."
She raised her eyebrows at that, for she hates slang. But she looked relieved too. When I think of how sure of myself I was that day I could rave!
"Then you're not going to waste any more time on Henry?"
"I think," I said reflectively, "that I'm going to use Henry quite a lot. But I don't intend to marry him."
Yes, that's what I said. I remember it perfectly well. I was putting a dab of scent behind my ears at the time. I feel that I shall never use the stuff again.
Well, mother went out quite cheered. It was the first real mother-and-daughter talk we'd had for a long time. When she had gone I went into my bathroom and locked the door and opened the windows and smoked two cigarettes, thinking things out.
The family is opposed to my smoking, and no one knows except mother's maid, who fixes my hair, and the gardener. When for the third time he had seen smoke coming out of my bathroom window, and had rushed upstairs with a fire grenade and all the servants at his heels, I was compelled to take him into my confidence.
Well, I smoked and thought things out. I am not beautiful, but I'm extremely _chic_, and at night, with a touch of rouge, I do very well. I have always worn sophisticated clothes. I thought they suited my style. But so did all the others. If I was to do anything distinguished it would have to be on new lines.
But the idea of me Lydia-languishing, prunes-and-prisming round the place was too much.
Athletics? Well, they were not bad. There's a lot of chance in golf, although tennis is blowzy. I look well in sport clothes too. But if a girl is a dub at a game a man is apt to tell her so, and I know my own disposition. If he criticised me, before I knew it I'd be swatting my prey with a mashie or a niblick, and everything over. Three men, mother had said. I knew who they were. They had all sent me flowers and danced with me, without saying a word, and then taken me back to mother and rushed for the particular married woman they were interested in.
Oh, I'm not blind! All the men I knew, old enough to amount to anything, were interested in some married woman. I drive my own car, and I used to meet them on lonely back roads, Lillian Marshall and Tom Connor, Toots Warrington and Russell Hill, and the rest of them.