“You couldn’t get her an engagement,” said Rodney, “I should have thought she was suited to the stage.”
“If there had been time I could have done something for her; she’s a pretty girl, but you see all these things take a long time, and Lucy wanted an engagement at once. When we left the theatre I began to realise the absurdity of the adventure, and the danger to which I was exposing myself. I, a man of over forty, seeking the seduction of a girl of seventeen—for that is the plain English of it. We walked on side by side, and I asked myself, ‘What am I to her, what is she to me? But one may argue with one’s self forever.”
“One may indeed,” said Rodney, laughing, “one may argue, but the law that is over us.”
“Well, the law that is over us compelled me to take her to lunch, and she enjoye
