"Call it that if you like."
"O, Jasper, Jasper, if only you would let me teach you a little about women."
The cynical yet motherly touch was excellent. Rose could be masterly, directly a little malice gave her practical shrewdness an opportunity. She could preach to a man, if she could not make love to him.
"What do you know about women, Rose?"
"La, now, listen to the lad! Jasper, half you men are nothing but great big boys. You think we are so much finer, and purer, and sweeter than you are, until we poor women show the true human stuff in us, and then you make a frightful to-do, and turn into cynics. Don't we want the men sometimes, just as much as the men want the women? And don't we plan and scheme to get them, playing all sorts of tricks with pride and coldness and smiles and relentings. Don't start away, Jasper, with thinking each girl a sweet fool of an angel."
He was caught by her words, and was angry with himself for being influenced.
"Sometimes people are what we wish them to be."
"Yes, especially if they are clever. The girl realises that. She puts on the clothes and the airs that please the man."
"You are a little cynic, Rose."
"Not a bit of it. I'm honest. I don't cover things up."