"Yes. Imagine it! Men are so fickle."
"Do you know that you really shock me?"
"It"s better to appreciate the way things are."
"It isn"t the way things are among decent normal human beings."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I imagine it is," she said, "only they"re not honest enough to admit it."
He continued to stare at her and, strangely enough, she had never seemed to him more beautiful.
"And do you mean to tell me," he said, "that people who have the standards that you describe will attach the slightest importance to an innocent little adventure like this of ours?"
"Of course. They are the very people who will."
"Nonsense."
"Yes, because they make a point of always believing the worst, or at least of pretending to."
"Why pretend?"
"Because it makes conversation so much more amusing. Sometimes," she added thoughtfully, "I have a terrible suspicion that there really isn"t an atom of harm in any of them--that they all behave perfectly well, and just excite themselves by talking as if they didn"t."
"And you call that suspicion terrible?"
"Well, it makes it all seem a little flat. But then sometimes," she went on brightly, "one does find out something absolutely hideous."
"See here," he said, "it"s a crime for a girl of your age to talk like this. It"s a silly habit. I don"t believe you"re like that at heart."
"You talk," said she, "like Edward Hickson."
"In some communities that would be thought a fighting word," he returned.
"But you haven"t yet answered my question. You"ve told me what your friends have done; but what would you do yourself, if you fell in love with a poor man?"
"In the first place, I never should. What makes a man attractive to me is power, preeminence, being bowed down to. If I lived in a military country, I"d love the greatest soldier; and if I lived in a savage country, I"d love the strongest warrior; but here to-day, the only form of power I see is money. It"s what makes you able to have everything you want, and that"s a man"s greatest charm."
"And it seems to me that the most tied-down creatures I ever saw are the rich men I"ve met in the East."
She was honestly surprised. "Why, what is there they can"t do?"
she asked.
He smiled. "They can"t do anything that might endanger their property rights," he answered, "and that seems to me to cut them off from most forms of human endeavor. But no matter about that. You say you would not be likely to fall in love with a poor man, but suppose you _did_. Perhaps it has happened already?"
Miss Fenimer looked thoughtful. "I was trying to think," she said. "Yes, there was a young artist two years ago that I was rather interested in.
He was very nice looking, and Nancy Almar kept telling me how much he was in love with her."
"And that stimulated your interest?"
"Of course."
"Just for the sake of information," he said, "do you always want to take away any man who is safely devoted to another woman?"
Christine seemed resolved to be accurate. "It depends," she answered, "whether or not I have anything else to do, but of course the idea always pops into one"s head: I wonder if I couldn"t make him like me best."
"And do you always find you can?"
"Oh, there"s no rule about it; only as a newcomer one has the advantage of novelty, and that"s something."
"And what happened about this artist?"
Christine smiled reminiscently: "I found he wasn"t really in love with Nancy at all: he just wanted to paint her portrait."
"I should think he would have wanted to paint yours."
"He did and gave it to me as a present, and then he behaved very badly."
She sighed.
"What did he do?"
"Well," she hesitated. "He did not really want to give me the picture. He thought he wanted to keep it himself. It was much the best thing he ever did. I had to persuade him a good deal, and in persuading him, I may have given him the impression that I cared about him more than I really did.
Anyhow, after I actually had the portrait hanging in my sitting-room, I told him I thought it was better for us not to meet any more. Some men would have been flattered to think I took them so seriously. But he was furious, and one day when I was out he sent for the portrait and cut it all to pieces. Wasn"t that horrible? My pretty portrait!"
"Horrible!" said Riatt. "It seems to me the one spark of spirit the poor young man showed."
She glanced at him under her lashes. "What would you have done?"
"I"d take you out to the plains for a year or so, and let you find out a little about what life is like."
"I don"t think it would be a success," she returned. "I don"t profit by discipline, I"m afraid. But," she stood up, "I"m perfectly open minded.
I"ll make a beginning. I"ll wash the dishes--just to please you."
He watched her go to the kitchen sink, and pour water from the steaming kettle into a dish pan, saw her turn up her lace-frilled cuffs, and begin with her long, slim, inefficient hands to take up the dirty plates.
Suddenly, much to his surprise, he found he couldn"t bear it, couldn"t bear to see the lace fall down again and again, and her obvious shrinking from the task.
He crossed the room and took the plates from her, and then with a clean towel, he deliberately dried her hands, finger by finger, while she stood by like a docile child, looking up at him in wonder.
"Don"t you want to reform me?" she asked plaintively.
"No," he answered shortly.
"Why not?"
"Because you would be too dangerous," he returned. "Now you have every charm except goodness. If you turned good and gentle you"d be supreme."
"I never thought goodness was a _charm_," she objected.
"And that"s just what I hope you will never find out."