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"
She drew out of a case beside her one of her unspeakable cigarettes. "Do
you suppose," she said, lighting it, and pausing to inhale the first
two or three puffs of smoke, "do you suppose that a woman who has lived
among wild beasts hasn't got instinct?"
I drew my chair nearer to the fire. She was beginning to be uncanny
again.
"I expected you were going to be horrified at the dreadful creature your
friend had taken up with. Oh, yes, I know in the eyes of your class
I'm a dreadful creature. I'm like a cat in many ways. I'm suspicious
of strangers, especially strangers of your class, and I sniff and sniff
until I feel it's all right. After the first few minutes I felt you were
all right. You're true and honourable, like Dale, aren't you?"
Like a panther making a sudden spring, she sat bolt upright in her chair
as she launched this challenge at me. Now, it is disconcerting to a man
to have a woman leap at his throat and ask him whether he is true and
honourable, especially when his attitude towards her approaches the
Machiavellian.


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