"I wasn’t going to," he muttered sulkily. "I don’t want to touch your hand, why should I?"
"I can’t imagine. But about Madeleine, she had all sorts of adventures on her travels; women made love to her, she fought duels and won them too, and then at last she found him."
"And got married, I suppose? Same old ending, why can’t they think of something different, I wonder?"
"Madeleine did; there was nothing banal or ordinary about her. She waited some time after she found him, trying him, and then when she was satisfied he was what she wanted, she put off her man’s things and sent for him."
"Without her things. I agree with you, Miss Selbourne; Madeleine was far from correct."
"Don’t be silly. Of course she had a dress on, a woman’s dress; that’s why she sent for him, to show herself in it, to prove to him she was a woman after all."
"Oh, nothing much; there the story ends. She admitted she loved him and next ... after that, left him."
"That was a poor sort of thing to do, why did she do it?"
"She didn’t want to spoil it, I suppose. I think she was right too. They parted, loving one another, anyway."
"I don’t think much of the man for allowing it. I would not have——"
"No," she said at last; "you, I should say, would have followed it up till she’d really begun to care, not the mere passion that she felt to start with, but the steady love that comes with time, and only a woman, I believe, can feel. Then you’d have got bored and left her."
"That’s cheap cynicism, Miss Selbourne; there are happy marriages."
"No doubt. I was talking of what you’d do. Very rude of me, but you introduced the subject."
Graeme felt very angry indeed. Analysis of character, he considered, to be his own particular privilege, and to have it applied to himself, especially when, as in this case, the reading was so obviously false, was most irritating. His whole life gave the lie to her words, he thought, and a sudden feeling of loyalty to and affection for Lucy sprang up, momentarily obliterating Stara’s attractions from his mind.
"As it happens, Miss Selbourne," he said stiffly, "you’re rather out in your prophecies. I’ve been married for the last ten years, and believe that, so far, I have shown none of the symptoms you mention."
