14
FLAMING YOUTH
girls, either. Well, why shouldn't she be different from them? Coming five years after Pd supposed all that sart of thing was over. She was pure aceident. How I tried to get out of having her! Perhaps that’s why she’s such a strange little ef. But Ralph's crazy about her—as much as he can be crazy about anything. I thought for a time she'd bring us together again.” “But you found variety more amusing than pure domes-
ticity," suggested the physician. “I?
It wasn't I that began it; it was Ralph. You
know I never went in for even the mildest flirtation until long after Pat was born; until I began to get bored with the sameness of life.*
“Boredom leads more women astray than passion,” prenounced the other oracularly;
“Oh, astray.” she fretted. >
“in our set, anyway.”
“Don't use mid-Victorian
=
“TI was only philosophising about our lot in general.* “We're a pretty rotten lot, aren't we! Though I suppose the people you don’t know, the people that nobody knows, are just as rotten.
serves appearances!
Ah, well, so long as one pre-
And Ralph has no Kick coming.
He'd gone on the loose before I ever looked sidewise at any other man. They say he’s got a Floozie now, tucked away in & cozy corner somewhere.” “Do ther?” “Has he?” “Ask him.”
“Too good a sport,” she retorted.
“I shouldn't be ask-
ing you if I thought you'd tell me. Very likely you don't
know. He hasn*t been boring you with confessions, Pil bet! Men don’t, do they?” “Only of their symptoms.” “But they confess to women.”
