VII
A Short Cut.
"WHAT ought I to do," asked the widow, carefully licking all the gum off the flap of a violet envelope and then trying to make it stick, "to a silly boy, who—asked me for a kiss?"
"What ought you to do?" repeated the bachelor, laying down his cigar and regarding the widow severely. "Refuse him, of course."
"Oh, of course," agreed the widow, rubbing the envelope spasmodically with the end of her handkerchief, "but what ought I do to teach him better?"
"I can't think of anything—better," replied the bachelor, charitably reaching for the violet envelope and closing it firmly with his fist.
"How about just taking the kiss—without asking for it?" inquired the widow naively, as she leaned luxuriously back among the cushions of the divan. "Wouldn't that have been better—for him, I mean?"
"Would it?" The bachelor looked the widow straight in the eye.
"Well," replied the widow weakly, toying with some fringe on a satin sofa pillow and carefully avoiding the bachelor's gaze, "he would have gotten it."
"And now he never will," rejoined the bachelor with a confidence he did not feel.