"As long as we're chums, I don't much care. When is that man going away?"
"Which man?"
"Oh, there aren't so many about here—Neville. I took him fishing, and didn't cotton to him."
"For any reason?"
"Now, don't speak with that distant air. He wouldn't unbend. I chaffed him about his politics. Hate a fellow who won't stand chaff! He treated me like a fly upon the wall."
"You're very young," said Sidney; then, meeting a glare from the corner of Austin's eye, she added quietly: "and impudent."
"A de Cressiers is never snubbed in these parts," said Austin laughing. "That's my mother's creed, you know, and Neville gave her the biggest snub she has received for a long while, so she and I both bear him a grudge. Why is he so superior?"
"He never strikes me to be anything different from ourselves," said Sidney. "He is a reserved man, and not a very happy one. He is a disappointed man, I should say. Life has treated him hardly."
"You seem to know a lot about him. I'm a disappointed man, and life is treating me hardly, but I don't talk to people as if I am in the sky and they in the gutter."
Austin finished with a little chuckle. His naturally sunny temper overcame his sudden prejudice.