"But think of my great big heart--a heart like an ox,"--he seemed on the verge of tears--"and to think that you, a woman I have never treated with anything but respect since we met in Honduras in the fall of '93--to think _you_ should throw it up to my own face that I'm not beautiful. Others there are, thank God, who can look into a man's heart and prize him for what he is--not condemn him for his mere superficial blemishes." "And I just know you've got in with a fast set. I met Mr. Milbrey yesterday in the corridor--" "Did he tell you how to make a lovely asparagus short-cake or something?" "He told me those men you go with so much are dreadful gamblers, and that when you all went to Palm Beach last February you played poker for money night and day, and you told me you went for your health!" "Oh, he did, did he? Well, I didn't get anything else. He's a dear old soul, if you've got the copper handy. If that man was a woman he'd be a warm neighbourhood gossip. He'd be the nice kind old lady that _starts_ things, that's what Hoddy Milbrey would be." "And you said yourself you played poker most of the time when you went to Aiken on the car last month." "To be honest with you, ma, we did play poker. Say, they took it off of me so fast I could feel myself catching cold." "There, you see--and you really ought to wear one of those chamois-skin chest protectors in this damp climate." "Well, we'll see. If I can find one that an ace-full won't go through I'll snatch it so quick the man'll think he's being robbed. Now I'll join you ladies to the extent of some coffee, and then I want to know what you two would rather do this summer _than_." "Of course," said Psyche, "no one stays in town in summer." "Exactly. And I've chartered a steam yacht as big as this hotel--all but--But what I want to know is whether you two care to bunk on it or whether you'd rather stay quietly at some place, Newport perhaps, and maybe take a cruise with me now and then." "Oh, that would be good fun. But here's ma getting so I can't do a thing with her, on account of all those beggars and horrid people down in the slums." Mrs. Bines looked guilty and feebly deprecating. It was quite true that in her own way she had achieved a reputation for prodigality not inferior to that acquired by her children in ways of their own.