"What did he want of you?" he asked.
"I didn't fully understand at the time——" she hesitated, then, with an angry blush: "He asked me to go to Italy with him. And he said he couldn't marry me because he had already espoused the moon!"
Desboro's laughter rang through the old library; and Jacqueline was not quite certain whether she liked the way he took the matter or not.
"I know him," said Desboro. "I've seen him about town kissing women's hands, in company with a larger and fatter one. Isn't his name Munger?"
"Yes," she said.
"Certainly. And the fat one's name is Waudle. They were a hot team at fashionable literary stunts—the Back Alley Club, you know."
"No, I don't know."
"Oh, it's just silly; a number of fashionable and wealthy young men and women pin on aprons, now and then, and paint and model lumps of wet clay in several severely bare studios over some unfragrant stables. They proudly call it The Back Alley Club."
"Why do you sneer at it?"
"Because it isn't the real thing. It's a strutting ground for things like Munger and Waudle, and all the rag-tag that is always sniffing and snuffling at the back doors of the fine arts."