"Yes," said Miss Voscoe, filling her glass from the little bottle of weak white wine that costs threepence at Garnier's, "I've heard that is so in your country. Your girls always marry the wrong man, don't they, because he's the first and only one they've ever had the privilege of conversing with?" "Not quite always, I hope," said Betty good humouredly. "Now in our country," Miss Voscoe went on, "girls look around so as they can tell there's more different sorts of boys than there are of squashes. Then when they get married to a husband it's because they like him, or because they like his dollars, or for some reason that isn't just that he's the only one they've ever said five words on end to." "There's something in that," Betty owned; "but my aunt says men never want to be friends with girls--they always want--" "To flirt? May be they do, though I don't think so. Our men don't, any way. But if the girl doesn't want to flirt things won't get very tangled up." "But suppose a man got really fond of you, then he might think you liked him too, if you were always about with him--" "Do him good to have his eyes opened then! Besides, who's always about with anyone? You have a special friend for a bit, and just walk around and see the sights,--and then change partners and have a turn with somebody else. It's just like at a dance. Nobody thinks you're in love because you dance three or four times running with one boy." Betty reflected as she ate her _noix de veau_. It was certainly true that she had seen changes of partners. Milly St. Leger, the belle of the students' quarter, changed her partners every week. "You see," the American went on, "We're not the stay-at-home-and-mind-Auntie kind that come here to study. What we want is to learn to paint and to have a good time in between. Don't you make any mistake, Miss Desmond. This time in Paris is _the_ time of our lives to most of us. It's what we'll have to look back at and talk about. And suppose every time there was any fun going we had to send around to the nearest store for a chaperon how much fun would there be left by the time she toddled in? No--the folks at home who trust us to work trust us to play. And we have our little heads screwed on the right way." Betty remembered that she had been trusted neither for play nor work. Yet, from the home standpoint she had been trustworthy, more trustworthy than most. She had not asked Vernon, her only friend, to come and see her, and when he had said, "When shall I see you again?" she had answered, "I don't know. Thank you very much. Good-bye." "I don't know how _you_ were raised," Miss Voscoe went on, "but I guess it was in the pretty sheltered home life. Now I'd bet you fell in love with the first man that said three polite words to you!" "I'm not twenty yet," said Betty, with ears and face of scarlet.