"The girl mother had in mind?" Having emptied the glass, he returned it to the tray and came over to her. "Yes, but if you want the truth, I preferred the girl in the chorus--the one the old lady got in a blue funk about, you know. She's still there, the last but one from the end, in the Golden Slipper. I'll take you to see it some night." "Men are strange," observed Gabriella, with philosophic detachment. "Now I couldn't feel the slightest interest in a man in comic opera. Did she really attract you?" "Um--humph," he was grunting again. "Wasn't she terribly common?" "Um--humph." "Wasn't she vulgar?" "Rather. They all are." "And fast?" "Regular streak of lightning." Then it was that Gabriella arrived at an understanding of masculine nature. "You never can tell what men will like," she concluded. While she spoke he winked at her from the mirror into which he was looking--mirrors always fascinated George and he could never keep away from them--and there was in his face the whimsical and appealing naughtiness of a child. Suddenly Gabriella felt that as far as character and experience counted, she was immeasurably older than George. Her superior common sense made her feel almost middle-aged when he was in one of his boyish moods. At the age of nine she had not been so utterly irresponsible as George was at twenty-six; as an infant in arms she had probably regarded the universe with a profounder philosophy. Though of course George was charming, he was without any sense of the deeper purpose of life. Like a child he must have what he wanted, and like a child he sulked when he was thwarted and grew angelic when his wishes were gratified. A single day had taught her that his father could not depend on him in business, that his mother could not trust him even to remember a dinner engagement. Gabriella loved him, she had chosen him, she told herself now, and she meant to abide by her choice; but she was not blind, she was not a fool, and she was deficient in the kind of loyalty which obliges one to lie even in the sanctity of one's own mind. She would be true to him, but she would be true with her eyes open, not shut. "George," she said presently, while she loosened her hair, "your father told me you didn't stay more than an hour in the office." The question, "What were you doing?" rose to her lips, but she strangled the words before they escaped her. Her mind was quick to grasp facts, and she had learned already something of a man's instinctive dislike to being made to give an account of himself. "You've been hearing too much gossip to-night," he rejoined gaily. "Take care what you listen to." "Don't joke, dear. I wish you would tell me things." "There isn't anything to tell, is there?" "Is your father very rich?" "Not very. Did you think you were marrying a millionaire?" "I never thought about it, but everybody at home thinks he has a great deal of money, and yet your mother talks as if she were poor."