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 FLAMING

YOUTH

157

“Do you think so? But Id be a rotten wife, Bobs,” she added, a cloud settling down upon her expressive face. “What kind of a training have I had to marry and have children to bring up?” “About the same as most of your set, haven’t you?” “Ves;

and look

at them!

There

isn’t one

of them

that’s true to her husband.” “Great Lord, Pat

me

‘Now, I have shocked you.” “Yes, you have. Not the fact—though it isn’t a fact so sweepingly—but that you at your age should know it or think it.” “Oh, I don’t mean necessarily that they go the limit. But they’re all out for a flutter with any attractive suitor that comes along.

Bobs, tell me something; if a married

woman goes necking around isn’t she more likely to—to go farther than a girl is?” “Depends on the individual. It isn’t the safest of pastimes for anyone, as I’ve suggested to you.” “But it’s such fun to make ’em crazy,” returned the irrepressible Pat. “Only,” she added pensively, “it isn’t such fun when you feel kind of crazy yourself. Yet it is, too. When I get married I’m going to everlastingly settle down and never look sideways at any other man. Bobs, what makes you think I ought to marry a man thirty years old?” “Tt’s about the right age for you. It will take a man of some wisdom and self-control to manage you, little Pat.” “More grandfather stuff!” she muttered fretfully. “I don’t want to marry a settled old thing. I want someone with some fun left in him.” “Two or three years from now thirty won’t look so senile.”