"Yours has the advantage in age," I replied, without a smile. "Mine goes back only to 1912."
"Ah! I'm glad to score that one point," he said, still laughing. "Dear Miss O'Malley, won't you please sit down? I'm a lazy fellow, and I'm so tired of standing! Now, don't begin by being cross with me because I call you 'dear.' If you realized what I've done for you, and what I'm ready to do, you'd say I'd earned that right, to begin with!"
"I don't understand you at all, or why you should claim any right," I hedged. But I sat down, and he sank so heavily into an ancient, plush-covered chair that a spray of dust flew up from the cushions.
"I'm afraid I'm rather too fat!" he apologized. "But I always lose flesh motoring, so you'll see a change for the better, I hope—in a week or two. I expect our lines will be cast in the same places for some time to come—if you're as wise as—as you are pretty. If not, I'm afraid you and Mr. O'Malley won't be long with our party. I say, you are gorgeous when you're in a rage! But why fly into a fury? You told me you didn't understand things. I'm doing my best to explain."
"Then your best is very bad," I said.
"Sorry! I'll begin another way. Listen! I'm going to be perfectly frank. Why not? We're birds of a feather. And the pot can't call the kettle black. Maybe my similes are a bit mixed, but you'll excuse that, as we're both Irish. Why, my being Irish—and Italian—is an explanation of me in itself, if you'd take the trouble to study it. But look here! I don't want you to take any trouble. I don't want to give you any trouble. Now do you begin to see light?"
"No!" I threw at him.
"I don't believe you, dear girl. You malign your own wits. You pay yourself worse compliments than I'd let any one else do! But I promised not to keep you long. And if I break my promise it will be your fault—because you're not reasonable. You're the pot and I'm the kettle, because we're both tarred with the same brush. By the way, are pots and kettles blacked with tar? They look it. But that's a detail. My sister and I are just as dead broke and down and out as you and your brother are. I mean, as you were, and as you may be again, if you make mistakes."
"I'd rather not bring my brother into this discussion," I said. "He's too far above it—and us. You can do as you choose about your sister."
"I can make her do as I choose," he amended. "That's where my scheme came in, and where it still holds good. When I read the news of Pa and Ma Beckett arriving in Paris, it jumped into my head like a—like a——"