"But it has. You've forgotten for the first time. Cursed be the egotism of man."
He sat down in an arm-chair on the other side of the tea-table.
"It ought to make a difference. Maurice Delarey, if he is a man—and if you are going to marry him he must be—will not allow you to be the Egeria of a fellow who has shocked even Paris by telling it the naked truth."
"Yes, he will. I shall drop no friendship for him, and he knows it. There is not one that is not honest and innocent. Thank God I can say that. If you care for it, Emile, we can both add to the size of the letter bundles."
He looked at her meditatively, even rather sadly.
"You are capable of everything in the way of friendship, I believe," he said. "Even of making the bundle bigger with a husband's consent. A husband's—I suppose the little Townly's upset? But she always is."
"When you're there. You don't know Evelyn. You never will. She's at her worst with you because you terrify her. Your talent frightens her, but your appearance frightens her even more."
"I am as God made me."
"With the help of the barber. It's your beard as much as anything else."
"What does she say of this affair? What do all your innumerable adorers say?"