"The difficulty ?" "Why as a married woman she'll be steeped in it again." "Surely"-- oh Mitchy could be candid! "But the difference will be that for a married woman it won't matter.

It only matters for girls," he plausibly continued--"and then only for those on whom no one takes pity." "The trouble is," said Vanderbank--but quite as if uttering only a general truth--"that it's just a thing that may sometimes operate as a bar to pity.

Isn't it for the non-marrying girls that it doesn't particularly matter?
For the others it's such an odd preparation." "Oh I don't mind it!" Mitchy declared.
Vanderbank visibly demurred.

"Ah but your choice--!" "Is such a different sort of thing ?" Mitchy, for the half-hour, in the ambiguous dusk, had never looked more droll.

"The young lady I named isn't my CHOICE." "Well then, that's only a sign the more that you do these things more easily." "Oh 'easily'!" Mitchy murmured.
"We oughtn't at any rate to keep it up," said Vanderbank, who had looked at his watch.