"Well, it depends on what you tell me to do. If it was anything that didn't matter much I might do it, sometimes, just to save your face. But as a rule I shouldn't."
"Oh!" said Hughie, in his turn.
"I may as well tell you at once," continued the lady, "the things that it's no use scolding me about. First of all, I always choose my own friends, and never take recommendations or warnings from anybody. Then you mustn't interfere with my dancing or sailing or riding, because I love them better than anything in the world. Then, you mustn't try to prevent my reading books and seeing plays that you think are bad for me, because that sort of thing is simply not done nowadays. And of course you mustn't call me extravagant if I dress nicely. Also, you mustn't expect me to go in for good works, because I hate curates. And don't give me advice, because I loathe it. On the other hand, it may comfort you to know—it does most men, for some reason—that I don't want a vote and I don't smoke cigarettes. Oh, the poor little mite!"
She was on her feet and across the lawn in a flash, to where the obese Stodger, prostrate upon a half-buried tree-root, was proclaiming to the heavens the sorrow of a sudden transition from the perpendicular to the horizontal. She comforted the child with whole-hearted tenderness, and after taking her turn in the game of croquet, returned to Hughie and sat down beside him again.
"Well—what do you think of me?" she inquired suddenly.
Hughie regarded her intently.
"I don't know yet," he said. "I want to see a little more of you."
"Most people," said Miss Gaymer with dignity, "make up their minds about me at once."
"I won't do that," said Hughie. "It wouldn't be quite fair."
Joan pondered this retort and finally flushed like a child.