"You might have taken an ax to him for all I'd care," Angus admitted.
"Hello!" she said. "Have you had any trouble with Blake?"
"No real trouble." He told her what had occurred.
"Well, I'm glad I used the whip," she commented. "He won't be proud of it—before his friends. Wait till I see the boys! A nice lot, sending Blake—Blake!—to meet me." Her teeth clicked over the words. "I suppose," she went on bitterly after a pause, "there's a black sheep in every family. But in some families—What do you think of our family?"
Angus stared at her. He had never thought much about the Frenches, who were outside his orbit. Being young, one side of him had at times envied their easy life; but another side of him held for them the grim, bitter scorn of the worker for the idler and waster. These things, however, were far below the surface.
"I don't know your family very well," he said.
She did not press the question.
"That is so. Angus—I hope you don't mind being called that, any more than I mind being called by my first name—we've known each other for years, but not very well. Perhaps we'll know each other better. I'm home for good. I'm supposed to be a young lady, now."
"Are you?" said Angus. She laughed.
"My education—polite and otherwise—is finished. That is what I mean. I am now prepared to settle down to the serious business of life—of a young woman's life."