For good, certainly. The
odd part of it is that he began by having an influence over her which
she declares improved her acting. So that was for good, too, as it
turned out. I think she makes too much of him. To my mind, he speaks
like a bit of consecrated stage tradition and looks like a bit of
consecrated stage furniture--he, and his thin nose, and his thin lips,
and his thin eyebrows. Personally, I'm sick of his eyebrows."
"They'll end by marrying," said Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Livingstone.
"_Herbert!_ How little you know her!"
"It's possible enough," Duff said, "especially if she finds him in any
way necessary to her production of herself. Hilda has knocked about too
much to have many illusions. One is pretty sure she would place that
first."
"You are saying a thing which is monstrous!" cried Alicia.
Unperturbed, her brother supported his conviction. "She'll have to marry
him to get rid of him," he said. "Fancy the opportunities of worrying
her the brute will have in those endless ocean voyages!"
"Oh, if you think Hilda could be _worried_ into anything!" Miss
Livingstone exclaimed derisively. "If the man were irritating, do you
suppose she wouldn't arrange--wouldn't find means--?"
"She would have him put in irons, no doubt," Herbert retorted, "or
locked up with the other sad dogs, in charge of the ship's butcher.
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