I got up and shook out my dress.
"It will be such fun!" she called out. "Mr. Burke has been so kind as to invite us, so don't keep him waiting."
I lifted my eyes to the dark orbs of that noble-looking man, and he must have known from the expression that I did not mean to keep him waiting in any respect. Gently bending my head, I withdrew.
I came from my room like a moving picture, with my black alpaca newly flounced, and surmounted by that fleecy white jacket with great buttons and double-breasted in front. Then my white hat, curled up victoriously, and the feather waving above it and curlecued around it, was enough to tantalize a minister.
Mr. Burke smiled graciously when he saw me come forth clad in the whiteness of my principles, and I knew that the sympathy between us was national as well as individual.
E. E. came out of her room flaunting a red jacket and a long black plume. Dashy for a married woman! But I said nothing. Let that young woman work out her own destiny; I am not her husband. I caught her sending sly glances from under her eyelashes at Mr. Burke. I wish Dempster had been close by, to see for himself, that's all.
If there is anything on earth that I detest, it is a flirty married woman.
We rode down to Pleasure Bay, four in the carriage, with that child perched up alongside of the driver. E. E. wanted to sit opposite to Mr. Burke, and, seized with a fit of extra politeness for that occasion only, insisted on it that I should get in first—which would have brought me face to face with Dempster. But I, too, was suffering under a sudden epidemic of good manners, and stepped back, bowing till the white feather shaded my face. She kept waving her hand; but I would not be persuaded into pushing myself before a married woman, and at last she got in, biting her lips as if she had a tenpenny nail between her teeth. I followed, looking innocent as a cat with cream on its tongue, and away we went.