“She might give us away.”
“No, she won’t do that, I can assure you. The little fool loves me too well.”
“Is that the way you speak of her?”
“Every girl who loves a man blindly is, in my estimation, a fool.”
“Then your estimation of woman is far poorer than I believed, Ralph,” responded Carlier. “If a girl loves a man truly and well, as apparently this young lady loves you, then surely she ought not to be sneered at. We have, all of us, loved at one time or other in our lives.”
“You’re always a sentimental fool where women are concerned, Adolphe,” laughed his companion.
“I may be,” answered the other. “And I can assure you that I would never dare to marry while leading the life I do.”
“And what better life can you ever hope to lead, pray? Do we not get excitement, adventure, money, pleasure—everything that makes life worth living? Neither you nor I could ever settle down to the humdrum existence of so-called respectability. But are these people who pose as being so highly respectable really any more honest than we are? No, my dear friend. The sharks on the Bourse and the sharp men of business are just as dishonest. They are thieves like ourselves under a more euphonious name.”
Carlier smiled at his friend’s philosophy. Yet he was thinking of the future of the girl with whom he was, as yet, unacquainted—the girl who had chosen to link her life with that of the merry, careless, but unscrupulous young fellow before him. They were bosom friends, it was true, yet he knew, alas! how utterly callous Ralph Ansell was where women were concerned, and he recollected certain ugly rumours he had heard, even in their own undesirable circle.
They spoke of Jean again, and Ralph told him her name.