“I never see Patty go off in a cab that I don’t feel she has thrown herself away,” observed Mrs. Fowler, yawning, while she turned to the staircase.  “Archibald, I hope you had a really good time with the judge.  I must say it is like ploughing to talk to his wife.”

Upstairs in her room a little later Gabriella said to George:  “Patty was telling me about the girl your mother wanted you to marry.”

He was pouring out a glass of water, and, absorbed in the act, he merely grunted for answer.  It was his disagreeable habit to grunt when grunting saved effort.

“I wish you’d talk to me, George.  It is so annoying to be grunted at.”

“Well, what do you want?” he replied amiably enough.  “Patty is a regular sieve, you know.  Never tell her a secret.”

“Did you ever like that girl—­really?”

“The girl mother had in mind?” Having emptied the glass, he returned it to the tray and came over to her.  “Yes, but if you want the truth, I preferred the girl in the chorus—­the one the old lady got in a blue funk about, you know.  She’s still there, the last but one from the end, in the Golden Slipper.  I’ll take you to see it some night.”

“Men are strange,” observed Gabriella, with philosophic detachment.  “Now I couldn’t feel the slightest interest in a man in comic opera.  Did she really attract you?”

“Um—­humph,” he was grunting again.

“Wasn’t she terribly common?”

“Um—­humph.”

“Wasn’t she vulgar?”

“Rather.  They all are.”

“And fast?”

“Regular streak of lightning.”

Then it was that Gabriella arrived at an understanding of masculine nature.  “You never can tell what men will like,” she concluded.

While she spoke he winked at her from the mirror into which he was looking—­mirrors always fascinated George and he could never keep away from them—­and there was in his face the whimsical and appealing naughtiness of a child.  Suddenly Gabriella felt that as far as character and experience counted, she was immeasurably older than George.  Her superior common sense made her feel almost middle-aged when he was in one of his boyish moods.  At the age of nine she had not been so utterly irresponsible as George was at twenty-six; as an infant in arms she had probably regarded the universe with a profounder philosophy.  Though of course George was charming, he was without any sense of the deeper purpose of life.  Like a child he must have what he wanted, and like a child he sulked when he was thwarted and grew angelic when his wishes were gratified.  A single day had taught her that his father could not depend on him in business, that his mother could not trust him even to remember a dinner engagement.  Gabriella loved him, she had chosen him, she told herself now, and she meant to abide by her choice; but she was not blind, she was not a fool, and she was deficient in the kind of loyalty which obliges one to lie even in the sanctity of one’s own mind.  She would be true to him, but she would be true with her eyes open, not shut.