"I have. I'll tell you now what it is—your face needs washing."
"I mean—really!" the smudges acted as a mask and diverted attention. "I wager you think girls like me—the me that was, the working girls—are, generally speaking, hounding young men on the matrimonial trail."
"Not necessarily that trail," Martin was teasing.
"You're all wrong, Uncle Davey, as far as most of them are concerned. They're young and love a good time and some of them have to learn a lot—learn not to play on volcanoes. But for downright, running-to-earth methods, look to such girls as Nan. They have the tide with them. Men, unless they're there to be caught, better watch out!"
"Oh! come, child, don't be sinister."
"I'm not, Uncle David," Joan's eyes shone; she was thinking of Patricia; "but you, everybody, lose a lot if they do not really know the truth about women—the real truth."
"My dear," David was quite serious, "I'm no longer hard or misjudging—I was frightened at your aunt's methods with you, but you're proving me wrong every day."
"You should have trusted her more, Uncle David."
"Yes, you are right, in part. I should have trusted her less—in some ways."
"About me?"