"Oh, poor Kitty! It was my fault. I let him know your address. I do hope the horrid man hasn't worried you." "Sugarman?" "No--Moss M. Rosenstein." "How pat you have his name! But why do you call him horrid?" Salvina stared. "But have you seen his photograph?" "Oh, you can't go by photographs. He has been here." "What! Sugarman had the impudence to bring him!" Kitty flushed slightly. "No, he called alone--this afternoon, just before you." "What impertinence! A brazen commercial courtship! You wouldn't receive him, of course." "Oh, well, I thought it would be fun just to look at him," said Kitty uneasily. "A commercial courtship, as you express it, is not unamusing." "I don't see anything amusing in it--it's an outrage." "I told you you had no sense of humour. I find it comic to be loved before first sight by a man who has no _h_'s, but only _l_'s, _s_'s, and _d_'s." "Sugarman says he did see you before loving you--noticed you before he went to the Cape. But you must have been a little girl then." "He didn't tell me that--that would have been even more romantic. He only said he fell in love with my photograph, as paraded by Sugarman." "Why, where should Sugarman get--" "You never know what mother's been up to," interrupted Kitty dryly. "Much more likely father." "What's the odds? Do have another piece of cake." "No, thank you. But what did you say to the man?" "The same as you. Don't stare so, you stupid dear. I said, No, thank you." "That I knew. Of course you couldn't possibly marry a bloated creature from the Cape. I meant, in what terms did you put him in his place?" "Oh, really," said Kitty, laughing, but without her recent merriment. "This is too prejudiced. I can't admit that mere residence in the Cape is a disqualification." "Oh, yes, it is. Why do they go there? Only to make money. A person whose one idea in life is money can't be a nice person." "But money isn't his one idea--now his one idea is matrimony. That is a joke. You ought to laugh." "It makes me cry to think that some nice girl may be driven into marrying him just for his money." "Poor man! So because of his money he is to be prevented from having a nice wife." Salvina was taken aback by this obverse view. "How is he ever to improve?" asked Kitty, pursuing her advantage. "Yes, that's true," Salvina admitted. "The best thing would be if some nice girl could _fall in love_ with him. But that doesn't make his methods less insulting. I wish all these Shadchans could be slaughtered off." "What a savage little chit! They often make as good marriages as are made in heaven." "Don't tease. You know you think as I do."