"I've other things to think about. If you want to call on Beresford, you can call in the day-time; your only reason for choosing an hour of this kind is that you think there's something rather venturesome and improper about it. It's this sort of behaviour that led me on a famous occasion to tell you that you were second-rate."
Possibly acting on a hint from George Oakleigh, I was beginning to share his experience that Mrs. O'Rane never resented a certain brutal candour of criticism.
"You do hate me, don't you?" she laughed.
"I have no use for the second-rate."
"And that disposes of me!" She leant down and drew Beresford to her until his head was pillowed on her bosom. "Baby, you're in love with a second-rate woman. So are ever so many people more, I'm afraid. It doesn't speak highly for the first-rate intelligence of men, but then I take men as I find them."
"Pardon me, you go out to look for them, Mrs. O'Rane," I said.
"It's the same thing."
"Not for a married woman."
We had bantered hitherto without very much malice, but my reminder seemed to carry a sting.
"I don't regard myself as a married woman," she said very deliberately.