“I’m quite shocked, dearie,” Lissa began as they bowled through the park, “to think you’d take up with the country bumpkin—really, with your career and looks and the way you’ve been keeping your hand in with Mark—” a bit of a pause here—“it seems to me you ought to play for bigger stakes than that funny storekeeper from Birge’s Corners ... aha, you are blushing! I’m glad you admit guilt. All well enough when you lived in that queer place and he was the richest man in it. It is always well enough when one knows the richest man, no matter how queer the place! But now, Thurley, with the desirables you could—” “Dan is an old friend—nothing more,” Thurley defended. “Then keep your sentiment in check until you go back to that queer place, for you’ve let him come to town to see you—twice that I know about.” Lissa’s eyes danced with delight. “He comes to buy things for his store.” Thurley was strangely alarmed at the secret being discovered. “Does it mean he must see you? I suppose, poor lad, he spends half his profits on you. What sort of a bonnet will his wife have for spring? Oh, Thurley, if only Bliss and Ernestine hadn’t tried to make you a nun and an opera singer at once—wrong—all wrong as can be.” Thurley felt it was her turn to scratch. “Anyway, Lissa, Dan is harmless; he’s only a shopkeeper and I’m not stopping his career.” “You allude to Mark?” this with dangerous sweetness. “Of course, you make him a mediocre dancer when he’s the ability to be something fine and big—I don’t know what, but I’m saying it is wrong for him to merely dance and if you’d prod him the other way, I’m sure he’d go. Besides, there’s no way out for you two, is there? I can’t imagine your marrying any one and it isn’t fair to Mark—he’ll be dry rot before he knows it.” “I married a mild person a long time ago; he let me gain my freedom in my own way—it is more satisfactory to be Madame Dagmar than plain Miss. I advise a marriage for the sole reason that the world always takes more interest in you; they are determined to find out what made the marriage go awry. When critics begin to harpoon, Thurley, get married, be divorced and you’ll find a sympathetic welcome from the public.” She lifted her gold chain with its dangling pencils, rouge boxes, tiny brandy flasks and other trifles, swinging it back and forth with a clinking sound. “But Mark—is so young—” “And I am so old? What an amiable little girl it is! I can stay young as long as youth loves me.” She seemed a wicked person hiding under a girl’s mask. “Don’t worry about Mark—unless you happen to be in love with him.”