Susan was not disconcerted. "Will you drink a tankard?" said she. "Or Sir
John has some Spanish wine which he makes much of."
"Susan, you despise men. It is a vile infidel habit." He paused, and Susan dutifully smiled. "Why now, what are you laughing at? You! You don't know what I mean."
"To be sure, no," said Susan. "Does it matter?"
"Oh Lud, your repartees! Bludgeons and broadswords! I mean, ma'am, you think men are nought but casks—things to fill with drink and victuals. Is it not true?" Susan considered this, her head a little on one side and smiling. She wore a dress of dark blue velvet cut low about the neck, and so, nature having made her sumptuous, was very well suited. "Egad, now I know what you're like," Mr. Hadley cried. "You're one of Rubens' women, Susan; just one of those plump, spacious dames as healthy as milk and peaches, and blandly jolly about it."
Susan looked down at herself with her usual amiable satisfaction and patted the heavy coils of her yellow hair and said: "Sir John often talks of having me painted. But that's after dinner. Will you stay dinner, Mr. Hadley?"
"Damme, Susan, what should I say after dinner, if I say so much now?"
Susan smiled upon him with perfect calm. "Why, I never can tell what you will say. Can you?"
"You're a hypocrite, Susan. You look as simple as a baby, and the truth is you're deep, devilish deep. Here!" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a guinea for your thoughts if you tell them true. Now what are you thinking, ma'am?"
"Why, I am thinking that you came to see my father, and yet you stay here talking to me;" she gurgled pleasant laughter and held out her hand for the guinea.
Mr. Hadley still retained it. "That pleases you, does it?"