"Oh, it's nothing special! I just wanted to see if I couldn't bring about a better understanding between you and me. It's awfully hard on Bobo, who is such friends with both of us—that you and I can't get on better I mean."
"Let's have a better understanding!" said Jack heartily. Privately he was thinking: "Lovely lady, what are you driving at now?"
"Bobo is such a dear," she went on, "but he's terribly dependent. He depends on you, and now he's beginning to depend on me! Well, it seems to me that we share a pretty serious responsibility, his having all that money and all. We ought to consult about what we should do, and agree on a course of action. If you and I pull against each other, Bobo will be torn in two, so to speak."
Jack looked seriously impressed, but inwardly he was grinning wickedly. "Ha!" he thought, "having failed in her effort to kick me out she is now proposing in diplomatic language that we get together and whack up." Aloud he said: "I expect you're right, though I hadn't thought of it that way. I thought I would take care of Bobo's business affairs, and you would look after his personal character."
"But under altered circumstances it might be difficult," she said darkly.
"Eh?"
"Don't be dense. I suppose you know that Bobo wants to marry me."
Jack never batted an eye. "I can't say that I am exactly surprised. Nor that I blame him," he added gallantly.
"Be serious. Of course I haven't accepted him yet. I have to be sure of my own feelings."
Jack stroked his lip to hide a grim smile.