“Isn’t it merely because he is rather difficult? You are used to having men fall in love with you, pursue you as Leonard does.”
“Maybe. What does it matter?”
Mrs. Pleyden abandoned diplomacy. It had come to what Polly herself would call a show-down.
“Do you intend to marry him?” she asked.
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Have you thought what it means?”
“Financially? A flat in Harlem or the Bronx or commuting to some—at present—unknown suburb? Yes, I’ve thought of it—considerably. But if Nell Croydon and Hallie Le Kay can stand it I guess I can. Besides, I always like anything for a change! And in a few years he’ll have a large income. Dr. Gaunt told me the other day that his personal practice was increasing rapidly, and of course he has his associate fees.”
“Very well. If you are able to see yourself living—with resignation—in an uptown flat or suburban cottage, changing an incompetent servant at least once a month and making over your clothes, cut off from everything to which you have been accustomed, and with a man who hardly opens his mouth, I have nothing to say. But are you sure he is in love with you?”
“No, I am not, and that is what makes it exciting. I rather like doing all the work for a change. Waking him up. And don’t you imagine he never talks. He’s bored stiff at dinners, and that he comes at all means a good deal; but when we take walks together he opens up, and sometimes is almost boyish.”
“Ah. You are sure you can make him love you?”