“I expected you were going to be horrified at the dreadful creature your friend had taken up with. Oh, yes, I know in the eyes of your class I'm a dreadful creature. I'm like a cat in many ways. I'm suspicious of strangers, especially strangers of your class, and I sniff and sniff until I feel it's all right. After the first few minutes I felt you were all right. You're true and honourable, like Dale, aren't you?”
Like a panther making a sudden spring, she sat bolt upright in her chair as she launched this challenge at me. Now, it is disconcerting to a man to have a woman leap at his throat and ask him whether he is true and honourable, especially when his attitude towards her approaches the Machiavellian.
I could only murmur modestly that I hoped I could claim these qualifications.
“And you don't think me a dreadful woman?”
“So far from it, Madame Brandt,” I replied, “that I think you a remarkable one.”
“I wonder if I am,” she said, sinking back among her cushions. “I should like to be for Dale's sake. I suppose you know I care a great deal for Dale?”
“I have taken the liberty of guessing it,” said I. “And since you have done me the honour of taking me so far into your confidence,” I added, playing what I considered to be my master-card, “may I venture to ask whether you have contemplated”—I paused—“marriage?”
Her brow grew dark, as she looked involuntarily at her bare left hand.
“I have got a husband already,” she replied.
As I expected. Ladies like Lola Brandt always have husbands unfit for publication; and as the latter seem to make it a point of honour never to die, widowed Lolas are as rare as blackberries in spring.