“You were never keen for details, so I shall not irritate you now by introducing them. But the fact remains that I have been made and backed by your father merely because he wished me to be your husband. You picked me out––and I was keen to be picked out––and he decided to make me as proper a companion for you as possible. I am in some ways as untried to-day as any youngster starting out; as I was when I fancied I made the grand and initial stride by myself. Your father feels that I ought to be eternally grateful––but then, what else could the father of the Gorgeous Girl think? He has harmed me––but he has ruined you. I hardly thought you would meet me halfway, still it was worth the try.”
Forgetful of her flounces Beatrice crumpled them in her hands, saying sharply: “Are you taking this way of getting out of it?”
“Good heavens!” Steve murmured, half inaudibly, “I keep forgetting you have never been taught values or sincerity! There is no way I can prove to you how in earnest I am, is there?”
“You mean to say that I am a failure?” she preened herself unconsciously.
“The most gorgeous failure we have with us to-day! And the worst of it is it is growing to be a common type of failure since gorgeousness is becoming prevalent. There are many like you––not many more gorgeous, and thousands less so. You are a type that has developed in the last twenty years and is developing these days at breakneck speed! And you can’t understand and you don’t want to and I’m damned if I’ll try to explain again.”
“Well,” she asked, shrewdly, quite the woman of the world, “what is it you are about to do? Wear corduroy trousers and a red bandanna and start a butcher-paper-covered East-Side magazine filled with ravings?”
“No; that is another type we plain Americans have on our hands.”
“Don’t spar for time.”
“I’m not. I’m through sparring; I want to go to work. I want–––”