“Don’t be cynical,” he cautioned.
“I’m not. The world looks good to me, and I try to look good to the world.”
“You have succeeded!” he exclaimed.
“I’ve about-faced,” she went on. “Now I presume everybody trustworthy until it’s proven otherwise. Time was, and not so long ago, when I was more than cynical; and I found it didn’t pay in a woman. A man may be cynical and get away with it; a woman only injures her complexion, and makes trouble for herself. Me for the happy spirit, and side-stepping the bumps.”
“Good girl!” Harleston applauded—thinking of her unhappy spirit, and the hard bumps she must have endured during the time that the late deceased Clephane was whirling to an aeroplane finish. “You’re a wonder, Mrs. Clephane,” he ended.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll make me vain?” she asked.
“It can’t be done,” he averred. “You simply can’t be spoiled; you’re much too sensible.”
“La! la!” she trilled. “What a paragon of—”
—“everything,” he adjected.
“Everything that I must be, if you so wish it.”