Montague was dumfounded.
“She never hinted it to me,” he said.
“By God!” exclaimed Oliver, “I wonder if that fellow is going after Lucy!”
Montague stood for some time, lost in sombre thought. “I don't think it will do him much good,” he said. “Lucy knows too much.”
“Lucy has never met a man like Stanley Ryder!” declared the other. “He has spent all his life hunting women, and she is no match for him at all.”
“What do you know about him?” asked Montague.
“What don't I know about him!” exclaimed the other. “He was in love with Betty Wyman once.”
“Oh, my Lord!” exclaimed Montague.
“Yes,” said Oliver, “and she told me all about it. He has as many tricks as a conjurer. He has read a lot of New Thought stuff, and he talks about his yearning soul, and every woman he meets is his affinity. And then again, he is a free thinker, and he discourses about liberty and the rights of women. He takes all the moralities and shuffles them up, until you'd think the noblest role a woman could play is that of a married man's mistress.”
Montague could not forbear to smile. “I have known you to shuffle the moralities now and then yourself, Ollie,” he said.