"I? It wasn't I that began it; it was Ralph. You know I never went in for even the mildest flirtation until long after Pat was born; until I began to get bored with the sameness of life."
"Boredom leads more women astray than passion," pronounced the other oracularly; "in our set, anyway."
"Oh, astray," she fretted. "Don't use mid-Victorian pulpit language."
"I was only philosophising about our lot in general."
"We're a pretty rotten lot, aren't we! Though I suppose the people you don't know, the people that nobody knows, are just as rotten. Ah, well, so long as one preserves appearances! And Ralph has no kick coming. He'd gone on the loose before I ever looked sidewise at any other man. They say he's got a Floozie now, tucked away in a cozy corner somewhere."
"Do they?"
"Has he?"
"Ask him."
"Too good a sport," she retorted. "I shouldn't be asking you if I thought you'd tell me. Very likely you don't know. He hasn't been boring you with confessions, I'll bet! Men don't, do they?"
"Only of their symptoms."