“It is generous, and like you. For myself, I think he deserved the worst he got.”
“Don’t forget he saved my life.”
“Nonsense. He did nothing of the sort.”
“I mean he rescued me from a very ticklish position, and at considerable sacrifice to himself.”
“What sacrifice? He knew the hills; he could have walked them blindfold, he said.”
“But to agree to come, after all that had happened—his disappointment, his—his merciless drubbing.”
“Well, he owed me some compensation for having insulted me so.”
“I must sympathise with him, gossip, nevertheless. Don’t I realise what it would mean to lose you.”
She cooed to me over that, like the lovingest of doves. What vanity it is to think to chop logic with a woman. She can see no reason in the world, I think, why, if the lusty adored of her heart be hungry, she should not snatch food out of the hands of a starving beggar to feed him.
“Well,” I said, “I am glad for his sake he thought fit to take himself off; and certainly I am glad for ours. A serpent in one’s Paradise is disturbing; but a wet-blanket is fifty times worse. I would rather chance a burglar than a chill any day—or night.”