“Good Lord, how could I prevent you?” “Well, I’m not quite sure of how. But you might try.” “Oh I’m too lazy and too stupid,” Littlemore said. “Yes,” she replied, musing as she still looked at him. “I think you’re too stupid. But I think you’re also too kind,” she added more graciously. She was almost irresistible when she said such a thing as that. They talked for a quarter of an hour longer, and at last—as if she had had scruples—she spoke to him of his own marriage, of the death of his wife, matters to which she alluded more felicitously (as he thought) than to some other points. “If you’ve a little girl you ought to be very happy; that’s what I should like to have. Lord, I should make her a nice woman! Not like me—in another style!” When he rose to leave her she made a great point of his coming again—she was to be some weeks longer in Paris. And he must bring Mr. Waterville. “Your English friend won’t like that—our coming very often,” Littlemore reminded her as he stood with his hand on the door. But she met this without difficulty. “I don’t know what he has to do with it.” “Neither do I. Only he must be in love with you.” “That doesn’t give him any right. Mercy, if I had had to put myself out for all the men that have been in love with me!” “Of course you’d have had a terrible life. Even doing as you please you’ve had rather an agitated one,” Littlemore pursued. “But your young Englishman’s sentiments appear to give him the right to sit there, after one comes in, looking blighted and bored. That might become very tiresome.” “The moment he becomes tiresome I send him away. You can trust me for that.” “Oh it doesn’t matter after all.” Our friend was perfectly conscious that nothing would suit him less than to have undisturbed possession of Mrs. Headway. She came out with him into the antechamber. Mr. Max, the courier, was fortunately not there. She lingered a little; she appeared to have more to say. “On the contrary he likes you to come,” she then continued; “he wants to study my friends.” “To study them?” “He wants to find out about me, and he thinks they may tell him something. Some day he’ll ask you right out ‘What sort of a woman is she anyway?’” “Hasn’t he found out yet?” “He doesn’t understand me,” said Mrs. Headway, surveying the front of her dress. “He has never seen any one like me.” “I should imagine not!” “So he’ll just try to find out from you.” “Well then he _shall_ find out,” Littlemore returned. “I’ll just tell him you’re the most charming woman in Europe.” “That ain’t a description! Besides, he knows it. He wants to know if I’m respectable.” “Why should he fuss about it?” Littlemore asked—not at once. She grew a little pale; she seemed to be watching his lips. “Well, mind you tell him all right,” she went on, with her wonderful gay glare, the strain of which yet brought none of her colour back. “Respectable? I’ll tell him you’re adorable!”