"Then cheer up. We all have our troubles. I have mine. One of them is Neale Winslow. He's trying to make love to me, Merry."
Meriweather lifted his head. "Winslow?"
"Yes. And I wish you'd see the way he goes about it—as if I were Red Ridinghood and he wanted to eat me up."
"He can't eat you if you don't want to be eaten."
"Oh, yes, he can. Some day, when I am walking alone in the wood, he'll come along, and he'll say, 'Little Red Ridinghood, why should you be walking through the wood alone, when you can ride in a coach-and-four, and have two men on the box and two behind, and have plumes in your bonnet, and pearls as big as roc's eggs in your ears?' And I'll listen, and let him go along with me, and then—he'll eat me up."
Meriweather gave a short laugh. "If you let him do it, I hope you won't expect any sympathy from me."
"I don't expect—anything—from you. But why shouldn't I take the plumes and pearls and the coach-and-four if he asks me?"
"Let's drop the fairy tales," he said with irritation. "If you marry Winslow, you'll simply be having him for his money."
"That's not what I should call an original remark, Merry."
"Oh, if you are going to look at it that way!"
"What other way can I? Mother wants me to do it. She says she has seen it coming on for a long time. And she doesn't believe in romantic love as a basis for marriage. She says the things to go for when you marry are the things that will make life easy."
