"Why must you marry someone?"
"Don't be absurd! Can you conceive me as a spinster? Rather than be an old maid I'd--marry you; I can't say anything stronger."
"You've a friendly way of paying compliments."
"My dear young fellow; as a--chum, when I'm in the mood, you're ripping, simply ripping; but as a husband--good Lord, deliver us! If Stella understood you only a quarter as well as I do she'd be only too glad to let you go the very first moment you showed the faintest inclination to bolt."
class="normal""And, pray, what sort of wife do you think you'll make?"
Again a pause, while more cigarette smoke went into the air.
"Depends on the man."
"I presume to what extent you can fool him."
"I can imagine a man to whom I would be all that a wife could be, the whole happiness of his whole life."
"I can't."