"Won't you show her that it is impossible?" the younger man cried at Howat Penny. "I can't take advantage of her heavenly courage. She doesn't realize the weight of opinion. It would make—"
"Stuff," she interrupted. "You'd make steel, and I would make an occasional dessert. You must be told, Jimmy, that the afternoon calling you have confused with life really isn't done any more. You have been brought up in rather a deadly way. You ought to be saved from yourself. I am a very mature person, and I am advising you calmly."
The dinner had come to an end; a decanter, in old-fashioned blue and gold cutting, of brandy, a silver basket of oranges, the coffee cups and glasses, were all that remained; and James Polder played with the cut fruit, the half-full cordial glass before him. "I am going to be brutally frank, Jimmy," she said again. "You know that is a habit of mine, too. You are a very brilliant young man, but you are not omnipotent—you require stiffening, like a collar. And I would be a splendid laundress for you. Harriet is a long shot too lenient. I might not be so comfortable to live with, but I'd be bracing. I'd have you in that dirty little superintendent's box in no time."
He made no reply; and, obviously tormented, automatically squeezed a half orange into his goblet. Then he took a sip of brandy.
"Together, James," Mariana asserted, "we would go up like a kite. By yourself—forgive me—you haven't enough patience, enough balance; you wouldn't fly steadily. You might break all your sticks on the ground." He moodily emptied what remained of his brandy into the goblet and orange juice, and pushed it impatiently away. "I'd rather do that," he answered, "than try to carry you with me on such a flight."
Howat Penny was conscious of a diminution of his fears. He had entirely underrated James Polder; the latter was an immense sight steadier than Mariana. His thoughts strayed momentarily to Harriet, back again in her public orbit. He could imagine that she had found Harrisburg insuperably dull, the hours with only Cherette empty after the emotional debauches of the plays elected by Vivian Blane. Yes, this young Polder would stand admirably firm. Mariana frowned at the cobalt smoke of her cigarette. "I am in a very bad temper," she told them. "No one for a minute thinks of what my feeling may be. You are both entirely concerned with your own nice sense of virtue."
"Not at all, but of your future," Howat Penny asserted.
Her lower lip assumed the contempt of which it was pre-eminently capable. She made no immediate reply. James Polder's fingers absently clasped the goblet before him; he drew it toward his plate, tipped the thick liquid it contained. "Just what do you recommend me to do?" Mariana challenged Howat. "Go through with a lifeful of winters like the last! Marry another Sam Lewis! I am not celebrated for reliability; it is only with Jimmy—" she broke off. Howat Penny recalled her callous expression, photographed in Egyptian dress at a period ball, her description of the hard riding and reckless parties of the transplanted English colonies in the south.
Polder lifted the goblet to his lips, but set it back untasted. Howat looked away from Mariana's scornful interrogation, unable to reply. Finally, "I am old, as you once reminded me," he stated; "I'm out of my time, don't understand, I can only remember, and remembering isn't any longer of use. The men I knew, the kind, I hope, I was, would ruin themselves a hundred times before compromising a woman. Polder appears to understand that. And women I had the privilege of meeting sacrificed themselves with a smile for what you dismiss as mere stupidity. God knows which is right. They looked the loveliest of creatures then. There was a standard, we thought high.... Things a man couldn't do. But I don't know—it seems so long ago." He stopped to watch James Polder take a sip of the mixture in his hand. The latter tasted it slowly, and then emptied the goblet. His face was blank, with eyes nearly closed.
"I could carry Jimmy up in my hands," Mariana said. "Don't," she added vaguely, as he squeezed out the remaining half of his orange and poured fresh brandy into it. "It's curious," he told her; "not at all bad."