“I mean it’s true that it isn’t true, and if Maud tells the truth about what isn’t true—”
“Come out of that skein of metaphysical wool, kitten,” laughed Gloria. “You’re tangled. Here’s what isn’t true; that you’re ‘Poor Darcy’ who has to get lovers out of books for lack of ’em in real life.”
“But I have been.”
“All right. Let Maud tell the people that used to know you, and make them believe it. There’s only a few of them and they don’t count. As for trying it on any one else, all she’ll get will be a reputation for green-eyed jealousy. How would anybody convince Jack Remsen, for instance” (Darcy winced, and Gloria’s quick sense caught it), “that you had to invent an imaginary adorer because you couldn’t get a real one? No, indeed! The evidence is all against it from Exhibit A, Darcy’s eyes, down to Exhibit Z, Darcy’s smart little boots. For an unattractive girl, your little effort of the imagination would be a pathetic, desperate, ridiculous invention, with the laugh on the inventor. For an attractive girl, it’s just a festive little joke. Don’t you see how it works out? The pretty girl (that’s you) can have all the adorers she wants, but she prefers to take in her friends by inventing one. Is the joke on the girl or her friends? One guess. Why, oh, why,” concluded Gloria addressing the Scheme of the World in a burst of self-admiration, “wasn’t I born a professor of logic instead of an actress?”
“It sounds reasonable,” confessed Darcy. “But will Maud and Helen be clever enough to see it?”
“Probably not.”
“Then—”
“Therefore I shall point it out to them in my inimitable and convincing style, with special hints as to the perils and disadvantages of getting a reputation for jealousy of a better-looking girl!”
“Then that’s all settled,” said Darcy with a sigh. “Now what about Sir Montrose? The real Sir Montrose, I mean.”
“Well, what about him?”