Читать книгу The Charm School онлайн

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"How ought a girl to be educated?" said Bevans, who had thought on this as on many other irrelevant subjects.

"She ought to be educated to be charming."

"Is there any way of doing that?—there'd be money in it, if there were."

"There's a way of educating her not to be—your aunt's way. Dear me! I remember there was a young woman there teaching geometry—the minute I saw her I withdrew Susie's name—so hard, so competent. However, this was several years ago. I dare say it has improved." She held out her hand cordially, but he did not notice the gesture.

"Mrs.Rolles," he said, "I really am awfully in love with Susie."

"And six months from now you'll be awfully in love with some one else."

"Why do you say that?"

"Men are never constant to the unattainable."

He couldn't help laughing at her tone, though her meaning was so unpalatable. "Perhaps not," he said, "but, you see, I don't admit that she is unattainable—not so long as she loves me."

​"Has she ever said she loved you?"

He was silent. She hadn't. She had said she liked him better than any one else—even David, for, of course, David was in love with her, too; she had told him he never bored her, and he knew, though he could not admit it even to himself, that when they went about together she enjoyed the sensation his appearance always made. She had written him quantities of the nicest notes—Susie could write the pleasantest notes, in the neatest little hand—and, since it had been clearly understood between them that he always came on Thursdays, she had been wonderfully kind in never allowing any one to interfere with him. But he could not feel that all these taken together indicated a great passion, and now, with Mrs. Rolles's cold eye upon him, they seemed particularly paltry.