"Certainly," answered Rob, looking at his watch. "We have over twenty minutes to catch the next trolley out to the Valley. They run every half-hour now, you know. So take your time. It will give me a chance to talk to Mary. She hasn't told me yet what her impressions are of this grand old Commonwealth."
If he had thought his teasing tone would bring the color to her face, it was because he was not as familiar with her background as she was with his. A long apprenticeship under Jack and Holland had made her proof against ordinary banter.
"Well," she began, calmly, mashing the edges of her ice-cream with her spoon to make it melt faster, "so far it is just as I imagined it would be. I've always thought of Kentucky as a place full of colored people and pretty girls and polite men. Of course I've not been anywhere yet but just in this room, and it certainly seems to be swarming with colored waiters. I can't see all over the room without turning around, but the ladies at the tables in front of me and the ones reflected in the mirrors are good-looking and stylish. Those girls you bowed to over there are pretty enough to be Gibson girls, just stepped out of a magazine; and so far—you are the only man I have met."
"Well," he said after a moment's waiting, "you haven't given me your opinion of me."
There was a quizzical twinkle in his eye, which Mary, intent upon her beloved ice-cream, did not see. Her honest little face was perfectly serious as she replied, "Oh, you,—you're like Marse Phil and Marse Chan and those men in Thomas Nelson Page's stones of 'Ole Virginia,' I love those stories, don't you? Especially the one about 'Meh Lady.' Of course I know that everybody in the South can't be as nice as they are, but whenever I think of Kentucky and Virginia I think of people like that."
Such a broad compliment was more than Rob was prepared for. An embarrassed flush actually crept over his handsome face. Joyce, glancing up, saw it and laughed.
"Mary is as honest as the father of his country himself," she said. "I'll warn you now. She'll always tell exactly what she thinks."
"Now, Joyce," began Mary, indignantly, "you know I don't tell everything I think. I'll admit that I did use to be a chatterbox, when I was little, but even Holland says I'm not, now."
"I didn't mean to call you a chatterbox," explained Joyce. "I was just warning Rob that he must expect perfectly straightforward replies to his questions."
Joyce bent over her letter, and in order to start Mary to talking again, Rob cast about for another topic of conversation.