'She is pretty!'
'But what's beauty, Mrs Hurtle? It's no more nor skin deep, as the scriptures tell us. And what'd a grand gentleman see in Ruby to marry her? She says she'll leave to-morrow.'
'And where will she go?'
'Just nowhere. After this gentleman,--and you know what that means! You're going to be married yourself, Mrs Hurtle.'
'We won't mind about that now, Mrs Pipkin.'
'And this'll be your second, and you know how these things are managed. No gentleman'll marry her because she runs after him. Girls as knows what they're about should let the gentlemen run after them. That's my way of looking at it.'
'Don't you think they should be equal in that respect?'
'Anyways the girls shouldn't let on as they are running after the gentlemen. A gentlemen goes here and he goes there, and he speaks up free, of course. In my time, girls usen't to do that. But then, maybe, I'm old-fashioned,' added Mrs Pipkin, thinking of the new dispensation.
'I suppose girls do speak for themselves more than they did formerly.'
'A deal more, Mrs Hurtle; quite different. You hear them talk of spooning with this fellow, and spooning with that fellow,--and that before their very fathers and mothers! When I was young we used to do it, I suppose,--only not like that.'
'You did it on the sly.'
'I think we got married quicker than they do, anyway. When the gentlemen had to take more trouble they thought more about it. But if you wouldn't mind speaking to Ruby to-morrow, Mrs Hurtle, she'd listen to you when she wouldn't mind a word I said to her. I don't want her to go away from this, out into the Street, till she knows where she's to go to, decent. As for going to her young man,--that's just walking the streets.'
Mrs Hurtle promised that she would speak to Ruby, though when making the promise she could not but think of her unfitness for the task. She knew nothing of the country. She had not a single friend in it, but Paul Montague;--and she had run after him with as little discretion as Ruby Ruggles was showing in running after her lover. Who was she that she should take upon herself to give advice to any female?
She had not sent her letter to Paul, but she still kept it in her pocket-book. At some moments she thought that she would send it; and at others she told herself that she would never surrender this last hope till every stone had been turned. It might still be possible to shame him into a marriage. She had returned from Lowestoft on the Monday, and had made some trivial excuse to Mrs Pipkin in her mildest voice. The place had been windy, and too cold for her;--and she had not liked the hotel. Mrs Pipkin was very glad to see her back again.