Her formal and, indeed, sanctimonious speech almost made me burst out laughing. She was still a very young woman, for all her marital adventure, and yet she dared to set herself up as a kind of sermonizer, a veritable Mrs. Grundy, who characterized and labeled that which displeased her as necessarily being false and meretricious. Decidedly what Marion needed was being pulled down abruptly and rudely from the preening pedestal on which she had so vauntedly perched herself. And I knew precisely how to bring about that downfall in the Snuggery!

“Why, my dear Marion,” I said as blandly as I could, “I deeply regret your hasty conclusion about my motives and my character. I wish you would allow me to demonstrate to you a greater and more reassuring proof that I have only the warmest regard for you just as I have for dear Alice.”

You may well conclude, dear reader, that I was not at all mendacious in telling Marion this: for, after all, the attentions which I intended to show her forthwith were as warm as any female, however pretentious or regal of degree, could dream of. And this as quickly as possible! Yes, I was fairly itching to undress the haughty and arrogant older sister of my beloved Alice, to find where the veneer ended and the woman began, where the secret emotions which were bottled up under the elegant gown and the overly modest altogether could be probed and brought to the surface. In a word, dear reader, now more than ever I had determined to make haughty Marion pay dearly for having flouted and insulted me in my own quarters. She had come as a welcome guest, only to pay me back with acid and vinegar for the sweet mead of friendship which I had offered to her.

This little speech of mine did not in the least dissuade her from her intention to leave my apartment without further ado. “You will show me to the door, I trust,” she said with a sniff, as she drew herself up to her full stature.