“Oh, I don’t,” Desirée assured her, with a child-like smile. “At home I never see men sit with their feet on a veranda rail. And I never see women drinking whisky there, either,” she added with a glance toward a nearby table whither a tray of high-balls had just been borne.
“I wonder you came, then,” sputtered Letty, with a despairing effort at cold reproof.
“One goes anywhere nowadays,” replied Desirée. “And besides,” she sighed raptly, “I love the country. Everything about it always has a charm for me. From trees like those splendid old oaks, down to—” her eyes swept the scene for an antithesis; accidently resting for the remotest instant on Letty’s profile as she finished, “down to the funny little rabbits with their ridiculous round bodies and bulging, scared eyes.”
“Gee!” groaned Caleb to himself, glancing helplessly from one girl to the other, “It must be hell to be a Mormon!”
For a moment, Letty pondered on Desirée’s harmless speech.
Then, all at once, a queer, gurgling little sound rumbled far down in her throat and she slowly grew pink. Her nose quivered a mute appeal to all mankind. Caine mercifully returned at this juncture. All unconscious of the smouldering fires, he proceeded, man-like, to stir up the coals.
“You have made one more of an endless line of conquests, Miss Shevlin,” he announced, “General Greer,—Miss Standish’s uncle, you know,—called me over to his table expressly to ask who you were; and to demand, in lurid diction, why he had never met you before. He is coming over here in a moment, if you’ll permit, to be introduced to you. You don’t mind?”
“Why, of course not,” said Desirée in sweet effusion, “Miss Standish knows how glad I am to meet anyone connected with her. By the way, she and I have been raving over the joys of country life. We—”
Letty was saved by the advent of an elderly man, apoplectic of mien, stumpy of gait, who hobbled across to their table and greeted her with a bluff manner he had spent many busy years in mastering. Then, without waiting for her reply, he nodded to Jack and looked expectantly toward Caine. The latter rose to the occasion.
“Miss Shevlin,” he said, trying to make the act seem bred of an unexpected meeting, “May I present General Greer?”