always marry the little thing with curls and the baby smile. Is that what you'd like me to be? Because I honestly don't think that's my type either."
"I find arguing with women very trying," observed Noel. "They always drag in unessentials, and dangle them before your eyes as if they were main issues. Even you do it. As for mother"
"Never mind. Let's get back to the main issues. I am the main issue—or my spinsterhood. What do you want me to do, exactly?"
"Simply this. I want you to cut the barbed-wire entanglements and come out into the open now and then. Men aren't wild animals, after all. They're only human beings."
Judy suddenly decided to drop nonsense.
"Do you know why I keep inside the barbed wire?"
"No. Why?"
"Because any man that I meet in this house has been asked here in the hope that I'll find him marriageable. And so the fairest—the only decent thing I can do is to let him know as soon as possible that I'm not in the market, so to speak. If he's a fairly good sort and seems to find me at all interesting, I—well, I put up more barbed
