Griswold did it, with a firm convincement that he was thereby breaking a sacred confidence. But the alluring lips and eyes were irresistible when he was fairly within their influence.
"I merely suggested the scene as something that might be done," he explained. "She did not approve of it. Her objection was that the _Fidelias_ in real life don't do such things."
"They don't," was Miss Margery's flippant agreement. "And your letting your _Fidelia_ do it is the one redeeming thing you have done in your drawing of her. Just the same, with all your ingenuity you leave one with the firm conviction that she will never, under any circumstances, do such an unconventional thing again; never, never, never! And that is a false note."
"Because it leaves out the common sex-factor; the one that is shared alike by the _Fidelias_ and the _Joans_ and all the rest of us."
"Just plain, every-day inconsistency--our dearest heritage from good old Mother Eve. Being a mere man, you can't understand that, so you neglect to put it into your women."
"But I can't let that stand," he objected. "You must allow the ideal some little latitude. _Fidelia_ was not inconsistent, either in striving with _Fleming_, or in betraying him."
Miss Grierson's perfect shoulders twitched in a little shrug of impatience.
"Not that time, maybe; with _Fleming_ standing by to tell her that she must be true to herself at whatever cost to him. But the next time--if she should happen to fall in love with the gentleman who was breaking into her father's house-safe...." She laughed in sheer mockery and misquoted a couplet from Riley for him:
"'There, little boy, don't cry; I have broken your doll, I know!'"
"Break some more of them if you can," he urged. "A few more casualties won't make any difference."
"There is only the boy-doll left; and I don't like to break boy-dolls."
"_Fleming_, you mean? I give you leave. Hammer him until he bleeds sawdust, if the spirit moves you."
Miss Grierson had been curled up like a comfortable kitten in the depths of a great lounging chair--her favorite attitude while he was reading to her. But now she sat up and locked her fingers over one knee.
"I said a little while ago that I'd never met _Fleming_, and I haven't. But I like him, and I'm sorry to see him putting himself in for such a savage hereafter. He is a good man, like other good men, with the single difference that he thinks he isn't bound by the traditions. He believes he can commit what the traditionary people call a crime without paying the penalties. He can't: nobody can."