Her old eyes twinkled.
"But I've no talent for either."
"Oh, let some one else judge of that! Let Judy judge."
He looked somewhat confused.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have said what I did."
"Why not? I sha'n't give you away."
"If I had any prospects at all . . ."
"It's amazing," she interrupted, "how strong and how weak men can be! There's my son Eric, for instance. A born fighter. In war, in politics, no compromise. But in love—in love he has the courage of a . . . of a schoolgirl. If he had only managed his wife! What he needs is a course in nettle-grasping. And so do you, Major Crosby."
"But I don't think for a minute that Miss Pendleton"
He paused, hoping, she saw, that she would help him out.
"That Miss Pendleton is interested?"
"Oh, interested . . . she might be, just a little, out of the kindness of her heart."
"Major Crosby, let me tell you that women are only kind when it gives them pleasure to be kind. A woman will rarely put herself out, I'm afraid, for a man who bores her."
