'No--she never does.'

'She's a flirt, then?'

'Bid--' Mrs Gildrea swallowed the rest. 'SHE would scorn such a
commonplace suggestion. Do you remember that novel of Hardy's, THE
WELL-BELOVED? She's like the man there, who was always in love with the
same Ideal--under different forms--until he found that he'd made a
mistake, and then the game began all over again.'

McKeith ruminated. 'SHE'S like that, is she? . . . The fellow is what
you'd call a bounder?' he exclaimed suddenly.

'So I imagine.'

'But she's in love with him--she must be, or she wouldn't write like
that?'

'You don't know her. She can't do anything by halves--while she's
doing it.'

'By Jove, that's what I like. There's a woman who'd never hang on the
fence. And her ideas about love and all that: it's splendid.'

He brooded again a few moments, while Mrs Gildea sorted her papers
afresh; then he exclaimed:

'It strikes me, she's one of the sort I was talking about just now.'

'Well, she WAS born in a castle.'