But at the critical moment, discretion came once more to the rescue. He fumbled hastily in his pocket for a cigarette, and with that in his lips, felt safer.
"There is really no reason," he remarked, puffing, "that the operatic career may not be combined with the luxuries you mention, Jacqueline—pink silk curtains, infants, and all."
"Do singers marry?" she asked; and he could not but admire the nonchalance with which she covered her disappointment.
"Rather! Fast and frequently."
"But surely they don't have babies?"
"Why not? A friend of mine on the operatic stage"—he mentioned her name—"assures me that each baby improves her voice noticeably."
"I think it is very hard on her husband," declared Jacqueline. "You know he'd rather have her at home taking care of the children properly, and darning the stockings, and ready to greet him when he comes home tired at night!"
"Judging from the size of her income," murmured Channing, "I fancy that he would not."
Jacqueline jumped up, scarlet. The chagrin of her recent repulse, the nervous strain of the past few weeks, the reaction from too exalted a plane of emotion, all found vent in a burst of temper rare indeed to her sunny nature.
"That's a horrid thing to say," she flared out, "and sometimes I think you're a horrid man! Yes, I do! When you're cynical and—and worldly that way, I just can't bear you. So there! I'm going straight up to the house. Good-by! You needn't try to stop me."