Loretta plainly regarded this argument as flimsy, for she snapped her fingers. "Pooh!" she said. "You could get a divorce any day you like." She stared at Constance a moment, then rose from her chair, planted her palms on the table and bent forward by way of emphasis with an air both determined and a little diabolical.
"Supposing your—your employer, Gordon Perry, Esq., counsellor-at-law, was to make you an offer of his hand and heart to-morrow, do you mean to tell me, Constance Stuart, that you wouldn't snap him up in a jiffy?"
"It isn't a supposable case," replied poor Constance. One can slam a door in an intruder's face; there is no such buffer for impertinent speeches.
"But supposing costs nothing. Of course it's supposable, why not? You're the sort of woman who's twice as good looking now that you've filled out as you were at nineteen. You know well enough you're growing handsomer and more fetching every day. Only a blind man couldn't see that."
"That would have nothing to do with it even if it were true."
"You may bet a man like that wouldn't marry you if you were plain. But just supposing? I do believe you're getting red again."
The victim, conscious of the fact, sought relief in merriment. She jumped at the impulse to treat this indelicate effrontery jocosely as the only possible attitude. "It's because you're so absurd, Loretta. But since you seem to wish an answer to your ridiculous question——"
The sharp note of the electric bell broke in upon the slight pause which she made to weigh her words.
"Someone for me!" cried Loretta, and she ran to the tube. But she looked over her shoulder to say "Continued in our next! The offer is good for a week."
Constance felt the inclination to throw the scrapbook at her head. The next moment she was vexed with herself for allowing her equanimity to be disturbed, and began to rehabilitate the interrupted sentence. What had she been going to say? It dawned upon her that, curiously enough, she had not formulated the conclusion. Meantime Loretta was going through the functions of whistling down the tube and receiving the message. The surprising import of her next words roused Constance from a brown study.