"That isn't philosophy, it's common sense based on observation of the underside of human nature.... I'm not blaming you for clinging to your friends, or standing up for them, I'm only anxious you shan't suffer from finding them out."
"I fancy I know Fanny, at least," Lucinda retorted severely.
"You think you do. And I don't dispute your superior knowledge of every side of her but one, the side she shows only to the men she picks out to flirt with."
"For example, yourself."
"Exactly."
Lucinda openly enjoyed an instant of malicious amusement. "Do you really believe you're learning to see through women at last, Bel?"
"You'll admit I've served a long apprenticeship"—Bellamy gave a deprecating grunt—"enough to have learned something."
"And now you're warning me against the wiles of my best friend!"
"I'm warning you against all such adventurers.... Oh, yes! the Lontaines are just that, both of them. Chances are they haven't got a dollar between them they didn't get from you. Neither did Mrs. Fanny set her cap for me just to keep in practice, she gets enough of that in other quarters. No: she had another motive, and it wasn't any way altruistic."
"What was it, then?"