"I'm not accusing your young woman—how old is she, by the way? About twenty-nine, I should guess. A damned dangerous age, Johnnie. However, as I say, I'm not accusing her of designs upon you. But a man who writes the kind of plays that you do is capable of any extravagance, and you're much too old by now to be thinking about marriage."
"I don't happen to be thinking about marriage," John retorted. "But I refuse to accept your dictum about my age. I consider that the effects of age have been very much exaggerated by the young. You cannot call a man of forty-two old."
"You look much more than forty-two. However, one can't write plays like yours without exposing oneself to a good deal of emotional wear and tear. No, no, you're making a great mistake in introducing a woman into the house. Believe me, Johnnie, I'm speaking for your good. If I hadn't married, I might have preserved my illusions about women and compounded just as profitable a dose of dramatic nux vomica as yourself."
"What do you mean by a dose of dramatic nux vomica?"
"That's my name for the sort of plays you write, which unduly accelerate the action of the heart and make a sane person retch. However, don't take my remarks in ill part. I was simply commenting on the danger of letting a good-looking young woman make herself indispensable."
"I'm glad you allow her good looks," John said, witheringly. "Any one who was listening to our conversation would get the impression that she was as ugly and voracious as a harpy."
"Yes, yes. She's quite good-looking. Very nice ankles."
"I haven't noticed her ankles," John said, austerely.
"You will, though," his brother replied with an encouraging laugh. "By the way, what's that rascal, Hugh, been doing? I hear you've replanted him in the bosom of the family. Isn't Hugh rather too real for one of your Christmas parties?"
John, after some hesitation, had decided not to tell any of the others the details of Hugh's misdemeanor; he had even denied himself the pleasure of holding him up to George as a warning; hence the renewal of his interest in Hugh had struck the family as a mere piece of sentimentality.