"All I wish is to be your father confessor, you know!" This simulation of friendship was another thing that always aroused her. She wished to punish him, and began to embroider. "Yes, I encourage Sassoon," she said, leaning on the table, nodding in emphasis, and switching a celery stalk among the glasses venomously, like the tail of an irritated leopard. "Harrigan Blood, too. And I have my reasons. You think I am a wild little creature who never looks ahead. Quite wrong! Everything is planned out. Everything will be settled--definitely--soon!" "When?" "On my twenty-third birthday--on the tenth of March. Remember that date!" "Very appropriate month," he interjected. "Then I am through with this sort of a life--good-by forever to Dodo!" she went on rapidly. "You don't believe me? I assure you, I never was more serious! Then I shall choose"--she raised her fingers, counting--"a great love, marriage, career, or"--she ended with a shrug--"lots of money!" "I see," he said, comprehending her maneuver, and yet annoyed by it. "And so Sassoon is a possibility?" "If you fail, quite a possibility!" she said, to irritate him further. "At any rate, I shall keep him just where I want him--until the time comes to decide!" "You could never do that, Dodo!" he said sharply. "Oh, couldn't I?" she cried, delighted that he had entertained the thought. "I'm quite capable of being a cold-blooded little adventuress! Perhaps I am one, and am only making sport of you. Beware! As for Sassoon--do you know what I'd do? I'd make him give me a career, and then, when I am very, very well known, perhaps--if I wanted--I'd make him divorce, and become Mrs. Sassoon! How would you like to meet me in society?" She laughed at the thought, but added immediately: "Oh, it is not so impossible, either! Nowadays, a clever girl who sees just what she wants can do anything!" "Is that what you would do with me?" he said quietly. She turned swiftly, abandoning all her pretense, pain in her eyes. "Oh, no, Your Honor! Not with you! I would take nothing from you, now or ever!" "Then don't say such things!" he said, strangely soothed by the passion in her voice. "Don't be--friendly, then!" she retorted, and with a quick appealing raising of her eyes she laid her hand on his. "I must talk frankly with her!" he said to himself, with a groaning of the spirit. "She will not face the situation, and there can be no solution to it--no possible solution!" He turned heroically, resolved to lay down the law, and his stern eyes encountered hers, so troubling and so untroubled, tempting and yielding--glorified and inconscient. "I am so happy!" she said; and, in an excess of emotion, as if suffocating, her eyes closed and her breast rose in a long sigh. Arguments and fears went riotously head over heels in flight. It was almost at the end of the dinner before, his calm returning, he said: "Let's talk of your career. Do you know, I believe you'd do big things!"