"No. I"m just getting used to you. It"s quite interesting. What do you want my advice about? Other girls, I suppose?"
"It may come to that," Loveland admitted.
"Anyone in particular, at the moment?"
"Well, supposing I were forced to marry money, for the sake of--of--my estates and all that, is there anyone on board you"d recommend?"
"You"ve two very eligible girls at your table."
"Yes. But hang it all, it"s too much of a good thing having them at one"s elbow like that, you know. If only it were you, instead----"
"On the principle of having the poor always with one. But for that you"d have to change and sit at mine. We"re all poor there, I think. It"s the Ineligible"s Table, for both s.e.xes. Would you care to come?"
"I"d care to, but I couldn"t afford it," said Val. "I must stop where I am and take the goods the G.o.ds provide."
"You mean the dining-room steward who arranged the seats."
"What else did Miss Milton say about me?"
"That you were very good-looking--as we"re being frank."
"I hope you agreed with her?"
"Oh, yes, I had to. Your looks are so obvious--so much a part of your stock-in-trade, if you don"t mind my saying so, it would be silly to deny that the shop windows are well decorated. It was apropos of your marrying that she spoke. I said a handsome man oughtn"t to be driven into the obscurity of marriage, by necessity. He ought simply to be supported by the nation, become a sort of public inst.i.tution, and be the pride of his country; be sent, beautifully got up, to walk in Parks, and dance at b.a.l.l.s, and make life pleasant for girls."
"Thank you. Anything else?"
"From Miss Milton or me?"
"From you."
"Nothing more from me. The rest was silence."
"From Miss Milton, then?"
"Let me see. She said it seemed as if you"d bought your eyelashes by the yard, and been frightfully extravagant."
"Wish I could p.a.w.n them!"
"If you marry as you intend, you won"t need to."
"I say, I"m afraid you"re frightfully sarcastic," said Loveland, who had never had an American girl for a friend before, and found that having one kept his hands full. "You think I"m a beast to marry a girl for her money."
"First catch your hare."
"You mean I mayn"t get one to take me."
"One never can tell. There have been slips between cup and lip."
"Although I"m poor, I can give my wife a lot of things a woman likes to have."
"Second best things."
"Oh, come! You haven"t stopped to think what they are."
"I"ve stopped to think that love"s the best thing--the thing a girl cares most for a man to give her."
"It seems to me that all the girls I know would be pretty well satisfied with the right to walk into a dining-room behind a d.u.c.h.ess, and----"
"Do you? What a lot you"ve got to learn about girls."
"I don"t think I have," said Val. "I think I know most of it."
"About life, then, and about yourself."
"Oh, I know nearly all there is to be known about them."
"You really do need a friend," laughed the girl.
"To keep me from being bored?"
"To keep you from heaps of things."
"Well, go on being my friend, and giving me good advice, please," said Loveland. "There"s Miss Coolidge, too. She"s a beautiful creature. Are there many other girls in the States as beautiful as she?"
"As beautiful, but few more beautiful."
"Any beautiful ones richer?"
"I"m not up in that kind of statistics. Major Cadwallader Hunter is."
"Yes. But I don"t care for the fellow. I"d rather take counsel with you.
Do you know Miss Coolidge?"
"No."
"I wish you did."
"Would you like me to use my influence with her?"
"I should like you to use your influence with me to keep me up to the mark. She"s rather hard to talk to. So different from you."
"She knows her value. She"s "worth" several millions, as we say in America. (I wish we didn"t!) Why should she worry to make herself agreeable? She can get all the attention she wants without bothering.
Whereas, we poor girls have to work hard, if we want to be popular in spite of our poverty."
"I suppose there"s something in that," said Loveland, too deeply absorbed in his own affairs not to take her in earnest. And the girl would have liked to turn a scornful shoulder upon him, if his voice had not been so nice, and if he had not been so handsome. As it was, she wanted to turn upon herself, because she knew that she was influenced by the nice voice, the clear features, and the black-lashed blue eyes. "He is a perfectly worthless young man," she reflected savagely, yet she did not tell him, as he deserved, that she had reconsidered and would not after all undertake the extra hard work of being his guide, philosopher and friend.
"It will be an experience for me," she thought. And she remembered that she had summed up his character from the first. The revelations he had just made of his inner self ought not now to surprise her.