I remarked that I had had the same experience; though of course I had only tried it once.  “Tell me,” I said, “who’s Larry?”

“There’s his picture.”  She reached into a drawer of her dresser.

I saw a handsome blonde gentleman, who looked old enough to know better.  “He doesn’t seem especially forbidding,” I said.

“That’s just the trouble—­you can never tell about men!”

I noted a date on the picture.  “He seems to be an old friend.  You never told me about him.”

“He doesn’t like being told about.  He has a troublesome wife.”

I winced inwardly, but all I said was, “I see.”

“He’s a stock-broker; and he got ‘squeezed,’ so he says, and it’s made him cross—­and careful with his money, too.  That’s trying, in a stock-broker, you must admit.”  She laughed.  “And still he’s just as particular—­wants to have his own way in everything, wants to say whom I shall know and where I shall go.  I said, ’I have all the inconveniences of matrimony, and none of the advantages.’”

I made some remark upon the subject of the emancipation of woman; and Claire, who was now leaning back in her chair, combing out her long black tresses, smiled at me out of half-closed eyelids.  “Guess whom he’s objecting to!” she said.  And when I pronounced it impossible, she looked portentous.  “There are bigger fish in the sea than Larry Edgewater!”

“And you’ve hooked one?” I asked, innocently.

“Well, I don’t mean to give up all my friends.”

I went on casually to talk about my plans for the summer; and a few minutes later, after a lull—­“By the way,” remarked Claire, “Douglas van Tuiver is in town.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve seen him.”

“Indeed!  Where?”

“I got Jack Taylor to invite me again.  You see, when Douglas fell in love with his peerless southern beauty, Jack predicted he’d get over it even more quickly.  Now he’s interested in proving he was right.”

I waited a moment, and then asked, carelessly, “Is he having any success?”

“I said, ‘Douglas, why don’t you come to see me?’ He was in a playful mood.  ‘What do you want?  A new automobile?’ I answered, ’I haven’t any automobile, new or old, and you know it.  What I want is you.  I always loved you—­surely I proved that to you.’  ’What you proved to me was that you were a sort of wild-cat.  I’m afraid of you.  And anyway, I’m tired of women.  I’ll never trust another one.’”

“About the same conclusion as you’ve come to regarding men,” I remarked.

“‘Douglas,’ I said, ’come and see me, and we’ll talk over old times.  You may trust me, I swear I’ll not tell a living soul.’  ’You’ve been consoling yourself with someone else,’ he said.  But I knew he was only guessing.  He was seeking for something that would worry me, and he said, ’You’re drinking too much.  People that drink can’t be trusted.’  ‘You know,’ I replied, ’I didn’t drink too much when I was with you.  I’m not drinking as much as you are, right now.’  He answered, ’I’ve been off on a desert island for God knows how many months, and I’m celebrating my escape.’  ‘Well,’ I answered, ’let me help celebrate!’”