“Then if you don’t like him why are you going out with him on Saturday?” “’Cos I am. Why shouldn’t I? It’ll be your turn maybe the week after. Hasn’t the poor man a right to ask out any girl besides you?” “I believe you _do_ like him....” “What?--Like _him_?--_Him_?--If I couldn’t find a better man than that I’d go without all my life, I would. Take him, my dear Amy, take him and God bless both of you! Don’t think _I_ shall mind!” “Oh, you needn’t talk like that. And you needn’t despise them that hasn’t got brains. I suppose you wanter marry a genius, eh?” Catherine laughed. “Not particularly,” she replied carefully, as if she were pondering over the subject, “but I know this much: I wouldn’t marry a man unless he’d got brains.” “Ho--wouldn’t you?” “No, I wouldn’t....” § 6 They spent Saturday afternoon at the Zoo. “A very interesting place,” he said, as they were strolling through Regent’s Park, with a July sun blazing down upon them. “And instructive,” he added complimentarily. The snake-house was very hot, and in front of a languid Indian python he remarked: “Poor things--to be stuffed up like that in a glass case....” He seemed to be searching for a humane plane on which to steer their conversation. And in the lion house, as they stopped in front of a huge lioness, he remarked facetiously: “How should you like to be shut up alone with that creature, eh?” “Not at all,” she replied, with absurd seriousness. They had tea in the open air near the elephant’s parade-ground. During the meal he said slowly and thrillingly: “I had a stroke of luck yesterday.” Politeness required her to be interested and reply: “Oh, did you? What was it?” He coughed before answering. He made a little bending gesture with his head, as if to indicate that he was about to take her somewhat into his confidence. “Last year,” he began, “I bought a certain number of shares for five hundred pounds. The day before yesterday these shares were worth five hundred and ninety-five pounds. Yesterday their value increased to six hundred and forty pounds. To-day they may be worth a still higher figure.... So, you see, yesterday I earned, in a kind of way, forty-five pounds. And without any effort on my part, besides. Forty-five pounds in one day isn’t bad, is it?” “Quite good,” she murmured vaguely. She wondered if she would startle him by saying that she had earned much more than forty-five pounds in a couple of hours. She decided not to try. “Curious how money makes money, isn’t it?” he went on. “Wonderful thing--modern finance.... Of course I am saving up. After all, a man wants a home some day, doesn’t he? As soon as I come across the right girl I shall get married....” He paused for effect. “If she’ll let you,” put in Catherine, from no apparent motive. He appeared ruffled. “Oh, of course,” he said, “if she’ll let me. Of course. How could I otherwise? ... Look at that elephant: those boys have given him a bath bun.”