"Because," Dennehy continued, "you wouldn't go on from man to man, being married to each of 'em for life temporarily, would you?" Winnie laughed, if reluctantly. But there is hardly anything that a ready disputant cannot turn to ridicule. "How you try to pin people down!" she complained. "You and your principles! I know what I should like to see happen, Mr. Dennehy." "Ah, now--'Dick'--as a mere matter of fairness, Winnie!" "Well, Dick, what I should just love to see is you in love with somebody who was married, or had been divorced, or something of that sort, and see how you'd like your principles yourself." She looked mischievous and very pretty. Dennehy shook his head. "We're all miserable sinners. But I don't believe I'd do it." "What, fall in love, or give way to it?" "The latter. The former's out of any man's power, I think." "What would you do?" "Emigrate to America." "Out of the frying-pan into the fire! It's full of divorced people, isn't it?" "Not the best Irish society." He laughed. "Well, you're chaffing me." "Oh no, I'm not. I'm serious. I should like to see the experiment. Dick, if Godfrey does run away, as you kindly suggest, give me a wide berth! Oh, is it quite impossible that, if I tried, I might--make you miserable?" "If you'll flirt with me after this fashion every time we meet, I'll not be miserable--I'll be very happy." "Ah, but that's only the beginning! The beginning's always happy." The sadness in her voice struck him. "You poor dear! You've had bad luck, and you've fallen among evil counsellors, in which term, heaven forgive me, I include my dear friends here at Shaylor's Patch." "I'll try your principles another way. If you were Godfrey, would you leave me--now?" He twisted his moustache and hesitated. "Well, there you have me," he admitted at last. "If a man does what he did, as a gentleman he must stand to be damned for it." "Godfrey's free to go, of course--that's our bargain. But you wouldn't have made a bargain like that?" "I would not, Winnie. To do me justice, I believe I'd think it enough to be ruining one woman, without providing for my liberty to ruin another as soon as I wanted to." Winnie laid her hand on his arm for a moment. "How pleasantly we quarrel!" she said. "And why wouldn't we?" he asked, with native surprise that a quarrel should be considered a thing inherently unpleasant. "Ah, here come Stephen and Alice, back from church! I'll go and run races with her, and get an appetite for lunch." Stephen lounged up, his pipe in full blast. "Stephen, how is it that this old world gets on at all, with everybody at loggerheads with everybody else?" "I've often considered that. The solution is economic--purely economic, Winnie. You see, people must eat." "So far the Court is with you, Stephen."