"I'm not cross, only frank."
"Oh, but frankness is such a bore, except when you use it as a weapon of concealment. In fact, I was talking to Jack about that very point two days ago. As a means of convincing people that you are not telling the truth, there is nothing so certain as to tell it."
This Bismarckian but imaginative résumé of the conversation in the Park came out quite glibly, and Marie laughed.
"Really, Mildred, you have a way with you," she said. "Jack went out yesterday morning in a vile temper, and came back after riding with you like a drifting angel, all sweetness and smiles. What had you done to him?"
"I forget what we talked about—probably about him, for that always puts a man in a good temper quicker than anything else. I'm so glad it was successful."
Marie sat down on a gilt Louis XV chair upholstered in Genoese velvet.
"I shall send him to you whenever he is in a bad temper, I think," she went on, "with a ticket pinned on to him, 'Please return in good condition.'"
Mildred laughed.
"Dearly as I like Jack," she said, "I am not sure that my affection would quite go to those lengths. Because Jack in an odious temper is like—well, like Jack in an odious temper. I know nothing, indeed, to compare to him."