"Oh, Durland," said Miss Temple, "I do wish you wouldn't smoke. It isn't good for you. It looks so badly." Durland gave a short laugh that seemed to say that if he had regarded public opinion he would have made of life a very different thing. In her distress Caroline turned to the stranger whose presence she had so far refused to acknowledge. "Don't you think it's wrong for him to smoke?" she said.
It was Pearl's moment.
"Why, no," she answered, "I can't see anything wrong about it."
She put out a lazy hand and took one from the little paper envelope.
Durland's hand, with the match in it, was arrested.
"But--you're not going to smoke--here? On the public beach?"
"Isn't it allowed?" asked Pearl, all innocence. "It must be--you are smoking. Let me have a match."
"I haven't a match," he said, and threw away his own cigarette so that she could not get a light from that. It was an important moment in his life. He thought rapidly. "I hope you won't think me fresh or anything," he said, "but I don't think a governess ought to smoke, if you know what I mean--not in public anyhow."
She wasn't angry, only thoughtful.