The conductor hushes the orchestra--gives gentle permission again to the flute. "No, dear, I oughtn't to say. Because I know how you feel about it, exactly. But what I thought of saying was...." "Yes. Do go on, Charlotte!" "Couldn't you have made up your mind to go--just this once? Because you _were_ asked, this time." "I shouldn't have enjoyed myself." "Of course not, dear! Neither should I. But you know what I think. It all turns on a question of prudence. _Anything_ is better than an _esclandre_." The other instruments come in again, and the conductor is warming to his work. "I don't see why we want anything French in it. There's nothing of that sort, so far as I know." "Of course not, with the people!" Given, that is, this character cast, Parisian laxities have no chance. But distinctions must be made. "Nobody's the least likely to _do_, but people will _say_, exactly the same as if they did do." Better expressed by Hamlet, in the plague he offered poor Ophelia as a dowry! Who shall escape calumny? Marianne mutters something her friend takes to be, "I don't care what people say." The orchestra--pursuing our strained musical metaphor--sees a _crescendo_ phrase ahead, and the conductor interprets it as _accelerando_. "That's where you're so wrong, dear--do forgive me for saying it! But you _are_ wrong. Pure and honest natures like yours always make that mistake. Of course you know, and I know--we all know--that to speak of anything really wrong in the same breath with your husband would be absurd, and even this fashionable girl for that matter. I mean, you know, really wrong." A nod-supported whisper--the music goes to _pianissimo_ quite suddenly; consider the sharp ears of Mrs. Steptoe, and Harmood, in the kitchen! But enough of that. _Our_ text calls for no secrecies; brush them aside, and resume without pedals, but _con espressione_. "But everyone is not like you, dear! So many people take pleasure in putting--well! the most horrid constructions on the most _inno_cent.... What?" For Mrs. Charlotte had stopped to gloat so long over the first syllable of _innocent_--she did not enjoy the "horrid constructions" half so much--that she had not heard what Marianne said. Who, on request, repeated it: "I didn't say I didn't care what people said ... oh well!--I've forgotten what I did say now, and it doesn't matter. Anyhow, I consider I've done _my_ duty, and now I simply won't _go_ to any of their dinners, come what may, Acropolis Club or no! So there!" This is a stronger ground than a plea of simple non-enjoyment as a cause of abstention, and Charlotte makes no protest. Her mind, too, is attracted by another point. She speaks dreamily to express that it is feeling its way, as through a mist, to illumination.