"You pretend to be Nancy's friend, and you're the only thing remotely approaching a lawyer that she has, and yet you can shake with joy at the thought of her going into bankruptcy." "That isn't what I'm shaking with joy about." "Nancy must have spent at least twice the amount of her original investment." "Just about," Billy agreed cheerfully. Caroline turned large reproachful eyes on him. "Billy, how can you?" "Listen to me, Caroline, honey love, it will be all right. Nancy isn't so crazy as she seems. She is running wild a little, I admit, but there's no danger of the sheriff or any other disaster. She knows what she's doing, and she's playing safe, though I admit it's an extraordinary game." "She's unhappy," Caroline said. "You don't suppose she's going to marry Dick to get out of the scrape, and that she's suffering because she's had to make that compromise." "No, I don't," said Billy. "I can't imagine anything more dreadful than to give up your career--your independence because you were beaten before you could demonstrate it." "Let's go right in here," Billy said, guiding her by the arm through the door of the grill of the Café des Artistes which she was ignoring in her absorption. It was early but the place was already crowded with the assortment of upper cut Bohemians, Frenchmen, and other discriminating diners to whom the café owed its vogue. Billy and Caroline found a snowy table by the window, a table so small that it scarcely seemed to separate them. "If it's Dick that Nancy's depending on," Caroline shook out her mammoth napkin vigorously, "then I think the whole situation is dreadful." "I don't see why," Billy argued; "have him to fall back on--that's what men are for." "Your opinion of women, Billy Boynton, just about tallies with the most conservative estimate of the Middle Ages." "Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned, then his evil genius prompting, he continued. "Isn't that just about what you have me for--to fall back on? You're fond of me. You know I'll be there if the bottom drops out. You're sure of me, and you're holding me in reserve against the time when you feel like concentrating your attention on me." "Is that what you think?" "Sure, it's the way it is. If I haven't got any kick coming I don't see why you should have any. You're worth it to me. That's the point." Caroline opened her lips to speak, and then thought better of it. The dangerous glint in her pellucid hazel eyes was lost on Billy. He was watching the clear cool curve of her cheek, the smooth brown hair brushed up from the temple, and tucked away under the smart folds of a premature velvet turban. "I like those mouse-colored clothes of yours," he said contentedly. "I think the only reason a woman should marry a man is that she--she--" "Likes him?" Billy suggested. "No, that she can be of more use in the world married than single. She can't be that unless she's going to marry a man who is entirely in sympathy with her point of view."