"To pick up a bankrupt nobleman!" he suggested.
She laughed.
"Dear, no! Nothing quite so stupid! Neither noblemen nor bankrupts attract me. No! I'm doing a scientific 'prowl,' like you. I believe I've discovered something with which I could annihilate you--so!" and she made a round O of her curved fingers and blew through it--"One breath!--from a distance, too! and hey presto!--the bear-man on the hills of California eating bread and milk is gone!--a complete vanishing trick--no more of him anywhere!" The bear-man, as she called him, gloomed upon her with a scowl.
"You'd better leave such things alone!" he said, angrily--"Women have no business with science."
"No, of course not!" she agreed--"Not in men's opinion. That's why they never mention Madame Curie without the poor Monsieur! SHE found radium and he didn't,--but 'he' is always first mentioned."
He gave an impatient gesture.
"Enough of all this!" he said--"Do you know it's nearly ten o'clock at night?--I suppose you do know!--and the people at the Plaza--"
"THEY know!"--she interrupted, nodding sagaciously--"They know I am rich--rich--rich! It doesn't matter what I do, because I am rich! I might stay out all night with a bear-man, and nobody would say a word against me, because I am rich! I might sit on the roof of the Plaza and swing my legs over the visitors' windows and it would be called 'charming' because I am rich! I can appear at the table d'hote in a bath-wrap and eat peas with a hair-pin if I like--and my conduct will be admired, because I am rich! When I go to Europe my photo will be in all the London pictorials with the grinning chorus-girls, because I am rich! And I shall be called 'the beautiful,' 'the exquisite'--'the fascinating' by all the unwashed penny journalists because I am rich! O-ooh!" and she gave a comic little screw of her mouth and eyes--"It's great fun to be rich if you know what to do with your riches!"
"Do YOU?" he enquired, sarcastically.
"I think so!" here she put her head on one side like a meditative bird and her wonderful hair fell aslant like a golden wing--"I amuse myself--as much as I can. I learn all that can be done with greedy, stupid humanity for so much cash down! I would,"--here she paused, and with a sudden feline swiftness of movement came close up to him--"I would have married YOU!--if you would have had me! I would have given you all my money to play with,--you could have got everything you want for your inventions and experiments, and I would have helped you,--and then--then--you could have blown up the world and me with it, so long as you gave me time to look at the magnificent sight! And I wouldn't have married you for love, mind you!--only for curiosity!"