"When I marry," Fred said, "nobody's going to pull that devilish bromide on me, that the man's past isn't my business. There'll be no Mortimores in mine! I mean to have children who will push the race along to perfection!"
"I bet they will!" he said.
She sat up on the sofa, cross-legged, clasping an ankle with each hand, her eyes glowing in the dusk. "You've given me a brace!" she said.
"You've given me one! I'd rather talk to you than any man I know."
She put out her hand impulsively, and he gripped it until the seal ring on her little finger cut into the flesh and made her wince with pain and break away; but with the pain there was a curious pang of pleasure. She got on her feet with a spring, and, rubbing her bruised finger, gave a last look about the apartment.
"I hope the tabbies will like it. Heavens, Howard, do you think they'll smell cigarette-smoke? I suppose they'd have a fit if they discovered that the 'sweet girl' smoked cigarettes!"
"Do they call you a 'sweet girl'?" he said, and roared at the idea.
"Mr. Weston doesn't like me to smoke. It gave me quite a shock to find he was such a 'perfect lady.'"
"Oh, well, he's old. What can you expect? I like you to. You knock off your ashes like a kid boy."
"Open the window a second, will you?" Fred said; "that smoke does hang around.—Howard, I believe they'll think I'm trying to lasso Mr. Weston into marrying me! Poor old boy, you know when he was young, before the flood, some girl turned him down, and I understand he's never got over it. The cousins will think I'm trying to catch him on the rebound! Funny, isn't it, how the elderly unmarried female is always trying to make other people get married? I think it's a form of envy; sort of getting what you want by proxy. Men don't do it."