“You are very flattering.” Patience was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable. She realised that the lore gathered from novels was valueless in a practical emergency, and longed for the experience of Hal. “I understand that you are considered fascinating, and I suppose most women do like to be flattered.”
“I never paid a woman a compliment before in my life,” he said, unblushingly. “You don’t look a bit like any woman I ever saw. Hal says you look like a ‘white star on a dark night,’ and that’s about the size of it. You have such lovely hair and skin. I’ve always rather admired plump women, but your slenderness suits you—”
“Oh, please talk about something else! I am not used to such stuff, and I don’t like it. Suppose you talk about yourself.” (She had read that man could ever be beguiled by this bait.) “Are you as fond of travel as Hal is?”
“I never travel,” he said shortly. “When I find a comfortable place I stay in it. Westchester County suits me down to the ground.”
“You mean to say that you can travel and don’t? that you don’t care at all to see the beautiful things in Europe?”
“Oh, my mother always brings home a lot of photographs and things, and that’s all I want of it. I never could understand why Americans are so restless. I’m sick of the very sound of Europe, anyway.”
“Are you fond of New York?”
“New York is the centre of the earth, and full of pretty—interesting things, dontcherknow? I’ve had some gay times there, I can tell you. But I’ve settled down now, and prefer Westchester County to any place on earth. I’d rather be behind or on a horse than anything else.”
“Don’t you care for society?”
“I hate it. One winter was enough for me. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me into a ball-room again. Of course when the house is full of company in summer I like that well enough. I play billiards with the men and spoon—flirt with the girls and the pretty married women; but I’m just as contented when they’ve all cleared out.”