She smiled. "It isn't proper for a well-brought-up girl to love until she is loved, is it?" Her expression gave Grant a faint suggestion of a chill of apprehension lest she should be about to take advantage of their friendship by making a dead set for him. But she speedily tranquilized him by saying: "No, my reason was that I didn't want to spoil my one friendship. Even a business person craves the luxury of a friend—and marrying has been my business," this with a slight curl of her pretty, somewhat cruel mouth. "To be quite frank, I gave you up as a possibility years ago. I saw I wasn't your style. Your tastes in women are rather—coarse."
Arkwright flushed. "I do like 'em a bit noisy and silly," he admitted. "That sort is so—so GEMUTHLICH, as the Germans say."
"Who's the man you delivered over to old Patsy Raymond? I see he's still fast to her."
"Handsome, isn't he?"
"Of a sort."
"It's Craig—the Honorable Joshua Craig—Assistant TO the Attorney-General. He's from Minnesota. He's the real thing. But you'd not like him."
"He looks quite—tame, compared to what he was two years or so ago," said Rita, her voice as indolent as her slowly-moving eagle feathers.
"Oh, you've met him?"
"No—only saw him. When I went West with the Burkes, Gus and the husband took me to a political meeting—one of those silly, stuffy gatherings where some blatant politician bellows out a lot of lies, and a crowd of badly-dressed people listen and swallow and yelp. Your friend was one of the speakers. What he said sounded—" Rita paused for a word.
"Sounded true," suggested Grant.