"I begin to think it's folly on either side," asserted Winn, soberly, "and especially in business. Jack says 'be good and you'll be lonesome,' and calls me a fool for being honest. You say I am out of my groove here and that a woman with a heart is a stupid. I am inclined to think that there is no such thing as truth, honor, and sentiment except among old fogies and children."
"There isn't and there is," responded Ethel, philosophically; "no one is all bad, or at least but few are, while not many are all good. Only, in matters of the heart, a woman who has one is bound to suffer, unless she meets and weds a young god, and gods are scarce in this day and generation."
"But is she likely to be the happier by marrying for money and position?" queried Winn, pointedly.
"To the best of my observation--yes," she answered, understanding perfectly well what he meant. "And it's to obtain your opinion on that very subject I asked you to call."
Once he had thought this girl the incarnation of all that was lovely and lovable. Young, handsome, and yet not of the Dresden china order, but warm, passionate, full of life and good spirits. She was all that now, but hard-hearted, cool-headed, a diamond among her sex, but not a pansy.
And so far as he could judge, one who would seek and accept only a golden setting. Once he had loved her madly, now he enjoyed her keen wit, her veiled flatteries, her perfect poise, her polished sarcasm, realizing that she was likely to be an ornament to the man who won her, but never a heart companion. And now he admired her intensely, but loved her not at all.
"Winn," she said at last, smiling, "have you analyzed me sufficiently to answer my question now?"
"No," he replied evasively, "and I never can. I've learned one thing, and learned it well, and that is, it's folly to tell a woman truth in such matters. They prefer lies that are flattering."
"Men never do, I suppose," she said, with a tinge of sarcasm.
"Oh, yes, they do," he admitted candidly; "men positively thirst for flattery--especially from a woman. But it is safer to tell them the truth. They will in time forgive that, even if it hurts, but a woman never will."
"That's a man's estimate," she asserted, "not a woman's. My belief is, truth is an unsafe knife to use in either case. But you have not answered my question."