“You might—for a month or so... yes.”
“Oh, go to blazes!” ejaculated Van Bleit irritably. “You don’t believe in anything.”
“I don’t believe in a nimbus for you, Karl, old man,” Lawless replied with unruffled serenity. “All the same, I’m glad to see you in earnest for once. When a man is in downright earnest he generally wins.”
He smoked for a few moments in silence.
“Have you put your luck to the test yet?” he asked, trimming the ash of his cigar with careful deliberation.
“No.”
Van Bleit drummed on the table, and stared moodily at the cloth.
“She never gives me a chance,” he said. “She’s cleverer than any woman I ever knew at putting one off. She makes a man realise that if he persists in coming to his point he’ll get the wrong answer, and, of course, when a fellow’s in earnest he isn’t going to risk that.”
“Naturally.”
There was silence for a few seconds. Then Lawless spoke again.