I know what you're
driving at. Shoot."

"Yes, Jim said he told you. Well, I've changed my mind. Janet's a
little fool, perhaps worse. Not half good enough for you and would
devil the life out of you before you got rid of her in self-defence.
Let her hoe her own row. How about that writing person, Gora Dwight,
you and Din are always talking about?"

"Never been the ghost of a flirtation. She's all intellect and
ambition. I enjoy going there for I'm almost as much at home with her
as I am with you."

"Ha! Harmless. I hope she's as flattered as I am. There remains Anne
Goodrich. She's handsome, true to her traditions in every way--Marian
Lawrence is a hussy unless I'm mistaken and I usually am not--she has
talent and she has cultivated her mind. She will have a fortune and
would make an admirable wife in every way for an ambitious and gifted
man. More pliable than Marian, too. You're as tyrannical and
conceited as all your sex and would never get along with any woman who
wasn't clever enough to pretend to be submissive while twisting you
round her little finger. I rather favor Anne."

Clavering was beginning to feel uneasy. What was she leading up to?
Who next? But he replied with a humorous smile:

"Dearest Lady Jane! Why are you suddenly determined to marry me off?
Are you anxious to get rid of me? Marriage plays the very devil with
friendships."

"Only for a year or so. And I really think it is time you were
settling yourself. To tell you the truth I worry about you a good
deal. You're a sentimental boy at heart and chivalrous and
impressionable, although I know you think you're a seasoned old
rounder. Men are children, the cleverest of them, in a scheming
woman's hands."

"But I don't know any scheming women and I'm really not as irresistible
as you seem to think. Besides, I assure you, I have fairly keen
intuitions and should run from any unprincipled female who thought it
worth while to cast her nets in my direction."

"Intuitions be damned. They haven't a chance against beauty and
finesse. Don't men as clever as yourself make fools of themselves over
the wrong woman every day in the week? The cleverer a man is the less
chance he has, for there's that much more to play on by a cleverer
woman. It would be just like you to fall in love with a woman older
than yourself and marry her----"

"For God's sake, Jane, cut out my fascinating self! It's a subject
that bores me to tears