Banneker sighed. “The curse of this business,” he reflected aloud, “is that every one regards The Patriot as my personal toy for me or my friends to play with.”
“This isn’t play at all. It’s very much earnest. Do be nice about it, Ban.”
“Betty, do you remember a dinner party in the first days of our acquaintance, at which I told you that you represented one essential difference from all the other women there?”
“Yes. I thought you were terribly presuming.”
“I told you that you were probably the only woman present who wasn’t purchasable.”
“Not understanding you as well as I do now, I was quite shocked. Besides, it was so unfair. Nearly all of them were most respectable married people.”
“Bought by their most respectable husbands. Some of ’em bought away from other husbands. But I gave you credit for not being on that market—or any other. And now you’re trying to corrupt my professional virtue.”
“Ban! I’m not.”
“What else is it when you try to use your influence to have me fire our nice, new critic?”
“If that’s being corruptible, I wonder if any of us are incorruptible.” She stretched upward an idle hand and fondled a spray of freesia that drooped against her cheek. “Ban; there’s something I’ve been waiting to tell you. Tertius Marrineal wants to marry me.”