"Not a bit of it! First, they draw you on, because you seem to hold off; and then, when you begin to warm up, they come down with a quencher, and you feel you've been a sight too bold. And all that kind of thing is distracting; and it affects your work after a time." "But surely," said Katharine, "a girl can have a man for a friend without going through all that!" "Don't believe in it; never did; it doesn't work." "I think it does, sometimes," observed Katharine. "Of course it depends on the girl." "Entirely," said Phyllis cheerfully. "The man would always spoil it, if he could--without being found out." Katharine leaned back on the pillow, with her arms behind her head, and her eyes fixed on the ceiling. "That's just it," she said thoughtfully; "men are so much more conventional than women. I am glad I am not a man, after all. There is no need for a woman to be conventional, is there? She isn't afraid of being suspected, all the time. I'm certain conventionality was made for man, and not man for conventionality, and that woman never had a hand in it at all." "I don't know about that, though it sounds very fine," said Phyllis. "But of course men have to be more conventional than we are. It helps them to make some show of respectability, I guess." "It is very horrible, if one analyses it," murmured Katharine. "According to that, the man who is openly bad is preferable to the man who is conventionally good. Of course Paul is not bad at all; but, oh! I do wish I didn't see through people, when they try to pretend things,--it always annoys them." "Eh?" said Phyllis, looking up. "Your tea is getting cold." "Never mind about the tea! Tell me, Phyllis, do you think any woman can attract any man, if she likes?" "Of course she can, if she is not in love with him." Katharine winced, and brought her eyes down to look at her unconscious friend, who was still munching shortbread with an expression of complete contentment on her face. "I mean if she _is_ in love with him, very much in love with him." "Can't say; never was, myself. But I don't believe you can do anything, if you've got it badly; you have to let yourself go, and hope for the best." "I don't believe you know any more about it than I do, Phyllis. I'll tell you what it is that is attractive to a man in a woman: it is her imperfections. He likes her to be jealous, and vain, and full of small deceptions. He hates her to be tolerant, and large-minded, and truthful; above all, he hates her to be truthful. I don't know why it is so, but it is." "It is because she isn't too mighty big to worship him, then; nor cute enough to see through him," said Phyllis. "If you can see through a man, you should never fall in love with him," added Katharine. "Oh, I don't know!" said Phyllis. "You can always pretend not to see; they never know."