“Oh, I want a man, not a sissy. He is just the son of Mr. Stanhope. He hasn’t enough sense to grease gimlets. He is a rich-born freak, and I think he has set out to make a condign idiot of himself, in the briefest, directest manner, and he will doubtless succeed. I prefer you for a rival.”
“But Frost, I would be powerless, quite powerless, with you in the field.”
“Ah, you idealize me, make me too great a hero,” answered Frost, quite pleased within himself.
“Not a hero,” spoke Robert slowly, “but a smooth calculating man of the period, just the manner of man to take with that type of woman. She, this charming, intense creature, is so innocent, so ‘un-woke-up’, I might say.”
“I am a holy terror at awakening one, and if there is any money with it I shall exert myself to arouse her.”
There was an awkward silence. Frost paused and lighted a cigarette.
“Has she any plantations, stock farms, and the like? You seem so well up in her history.”
“No, with the exception of a thousand dollars or so, she is absolutely without means.”
“That settles it,” said Frost, flippantly. “You and your John Alden may open negotiations for her beauty and innocence, but they are too tame for me.”
“You are a fisherman, Frost, and if you can’t catch a whale you catch a trout, and if you can’t catch a trout you would whip in the shallows for the poor little minnows.”