Valerie glanced across the top of the piano, laughing, while her hands passed idly here and there over the keys:
"Sam can be very nice, Rita; but you've got to make him," she said.
"Did you ever know a really interesting man who didn't require watching?" inquired Annan, mildly.
Rita surveyed him with disdain: "Plenty."
"Don't believe it. No girl has any very enthusiastic use for a man in whom she has perfect confidence."
"Here's another profound observation," added Ogilvy; "when a woman loses confidence in a man she finds a brand-new interest in him. But when a man once really loses confidence in a woman, he never regains it, and it's the beginning of the end. What do you think about that, Miss West?"
Valerie, still smiling, struck a light chord or two, considering:
"I don't know how it would be," she said, "to lose confidence in a man you really care much about. I should think it would break a girl's heart."
"It doesn't," said Rita, with supreme contempt. "You become accustomed to it."
Valerie leaned forward against the keyboard, laughing: