Imprudent Lady by Joan Smith Page B

gentleman friend would have understood at a glance what he meant and accepted it. Her eye fell on Mr. Seville's spray of violets. It never occurred to Dammler to send her a flower. Why should she sit home while he was out enjoying himself? She picked up her pen and accepted Mr. Seville's offer. A drive in the park was quite unexceptionable, and she was not doing it to spite Dammler. Not the highest stickler could take exception to it, and she hoped she met Dammler head-on with his Phyrne.
    Mr. Seville called at three o'clock, carrying a large bouquet of flowers. Her innate sense of taste and comedy laughed at this second shower of blooms in one day, but she accepted the roses with a good grace. “I see you wear my violets next to your heart,” Mr. Seville teased, his brown eyes dancing.
    “Be Prudent about S” darted into her head. “Oh, but a spray of flowers is generally worn on the jacket, you know, and the left side is less in the way than the right."
    “They are lucky violets,” he said with a sigh as they went out the door. He let his eye rest long on them, or possibly the bosom beneath them.
    “Shall we go, Mr. Seville?"
    “Yes, there is no privacy here, in your uncle's house.” Clarence, informed that Mr. Seville was a nabob, had been fawning.
    “Uncle likes to meet my friends,” she explained.
    “Yes, that is natural. He seemed not to dislike me,” he said, in an excess of understatement.
    “He likes you very much,” Prudence assured him.
    “Still, it must be difficult for you, under his roof, with no privacy to meet your friends at your own ease. You, who move in literary circles, must often feel the want of a place of your own."
    “I sometimes feel I could work better if I had a place of my own, but Mama and I are in rather straitened circumstances since my father died."
    “It seems a pity, if money is all that stands in your way."
    “But money is important, especially when you haven't much of it."
    “A lady like you shouldn't have to worry about money. You should be dressed in fine gowns and jewels.” Prudence looked down at her very best blue outfit and thought the remark uncalled for. “Real diamonds, I mean, not those little chips you wore the other evening."
    “I am not likely ever to have diamonds. I manage to get along without them."
    “Did you never have a desire to dress yourself in silk and jewels?"
    “Occasionally,” she admitted, a vision of Phyrne in her chiffon and diamonds passing through her head.
    “You'd take the shine out of them all, Miss Mallow. Countenance—you have countenance. It is your being a literary woman, and so dashed clever. Able to drop a droll word into any conversation and make it sparkle. Better than diamonds. Diamonds can be bought, but wit is inherited, like a title."
    “Or money,” she laughed in agreement, thinking he was not so bad after all.
    “Yes, by Jove, like money. Well, there's more than one way of getting the blunt, what?"
    “Yes, one can earn it by hard work."
    “An attractive lady wouldn't have to work too hard to earn it. A man of means would be happy to share his with her.” Mr. Seville reached out and grabbed her gloved hand. She hardly knew what to think, but she quickly decided to be prudent about S; and recovering her hand, she edged a little closer to her own side of the carriage.
    “What a smart phaeton that is,” she said, pointing out the window to where a high-perch phaeton was being tooled past by a very dashing lady. Prudence looked closely to see if she recognized her, but she was having no luck in spotting Dammler and his friend.
    “Would you like to have such a rig?"
    “Yes, indeed, I'm sure anyone would, though I shouldn't know how to handle it so well as that lady does."
    “Her nags are nothing out of the ordinary. I have a pair of matched bays, high stepping fillies—smashing they'd look harnessed to a bang-up little phaeton or dormeuse."
    “That sounds very nice. Why don't you get such a carriage for