“And of much foolishness,” Hancock added.
“Of much fine foolishness,” Dick gravely amended.
“Let me ask Leo something,” Dar Hyal said. “Leo, why is it that a woman loves the man who beats her?”
“And doesn’t love the man who doesn’t beat her?” Leo countered.
“Precisely.”
“Well, Dar, you are partly right and mostly wrong.—Oh, I have learned about definitions from you fellows. You’ve cunningly left them out of your two propositions. Now I’ll put them in for you. A man who beats a woman he loves is a low type man. A woman who loves the man who beats her is a low type woman. No high type man beats the woman he loves. No high type woman,” and all unconsciously Leo’s eyes roved to Paula, “could love a man who beats her.”
“No, Leo,” Dick said, “I assure you I have never, never beaten Paula.”
“So you see, Dar,” Leo went on with flushing cheeks, “you are wrong. Paula loves Dick without being beaten.”
With what seemed pleased amusement beaming on his face, Dick turned to Paula as if to ask her silent approval of the lad’s words; but what Dick sought was the effect of the impact of such words under the circumstances he apprehended. In Paula’s eyes he thought he detected a flicker of something he knew not what. Graham’s face he found expressionless insofar as there was no apparent change of the expression of interest that had been there.
“Woman has certainly found her St. George tonight,” Graham complimented. “Leo, you shame me. Here I sit quietly by while you fight three dragons.”