“You think of him as a possible husband: I am frank—it is my profession to be so. But your heart,”—he pointed dramatically to her bosom—“has never had a flutter. You don’t deny it. Good. In your extremity, as you think, you send him an urgent telegram, such as no man of human feeling could disregard. He borrows his cousin’s husband’s motor-car and obeys your summons. You interview him in yonder little fly-blown, suffocating salon. You put your case before him—with no matter what feminine delicacy. He perceives that he is confronted with a claim for a demand in marriage. He draws back. He cannot by means of any quirk or quibble of French law marry you without his parent’s consent. This they would never give, having their own well-matured and irrefragable plans. Marriage is as impossible as immediate canonization. ‘But,’ says he, ‘we are both young. We love each other, we shall both be in the _quartier_ for time indefinite’—time is never definite, thank God, to youth—‘Why should we not set up housekeeping together? I have enough for both—and let the future take care of itself.’” Corinna rose and looked at him haggardly and clutched him by the shoulder. “How, in the name of God, do you know that? Who told you? Who overheard that little beast propose that I should go and live with him as his mistress?” Fortinbras patted the white-knuckled hand and smiled, as he looked up into her tense face. “Do you suppose, my dear child, that I have been the father confessor of half the _Rive Gauche_ for twenty years without knowing something of the ways of the _Rive Gauche_? without knowing something, not exactly of international, but say of multi-national codes of social observance, morality, honour, and so forth, and how they clash, correspond and interact? I know the two international forces—yours and Camille Fargot’s, converging on the matrimonial point—and with simple certainty I tell you the resultant. It’s like a schoolboy’s exercise in mathematics.” She freed herself and sat down again dejectedly. Everything had happened as Fortinbras declared. His only omission, to repair which she had not given him time, was the scene of flaming indignation incident to Camille Fargot’s dismissal. And his psychology was correct. The young man’s charming love-making had flattered her, had indeed awakened foolish hopes; but she had never cared a button for him. Now she loathed him with a devastating hate. She thrummed with her fingers on the table. “What is there left for me to do?” “Ah, now,” said Fortinbras genially, “we’re talking sense. Now we come to our famous second professional consultation.” “Go ahead then,” said Corinna. “I mentioned the word ‘professional,’” Fortinbras remarked. Martin laughed and put a ten-franc piece into the soft open palm. “I’ll pay for both,” said he.