She weighed her responsibility. "I only make out—more's the pity!—that he doesn't."
"Is it then something too terrible—?"
She thought again. "I don't know what—for men—IS too terrible."
"Well then as you don't know what 'is' for women either—good-bye!" her visitor laughed.
It practically wound up the interview; which, however, terminating thus on a considerable stir of the air, was to give Miss Cutter for several days the sense of being much blown about. The degree to which, to begin with, she had been drawn—or perhaps rather pushed—closer to Scott was marked in the brief colloquy that she on her friend's departure had with him. He had immediately said it. "You'll see if she doesn't ask me down!"
"So soon?"
"Oh I've known them at places—at Cannes, at Pau, at Shanghai—do it sooner still. I always know when they will. You can't make out they don't love me!" He spoke almost plaintively, as if he wished she could.
"Then I don't see why it hasn't done you more good."
"Why Mamie," he patiently reasoned, "what more good could it? As I tell you," he explained, "it has just been my life."
"Then why do you come to me for money?"