Maurice looked at her with a sharp sense that he ought not to allow her to go on, yet with a desire to know more so burning that he could not refrain.
"I didn't even know that anybody had come from Boston to see Miss Morison," he replied; "so that it isn't easy to say whether I know him or not."
"His name is Parker Stanford, and he's all the signs of being better'n his grandfathers and knowing it through and through. He's too fond of his looks to suit me."
"I don't know him," Maurice answered, "except that I've heard my cousin, Mrs. Staggchase, mention his name. He's very rich, I believe, and a good deal of a leader in society."
"Humph," sniffed Mehitabel. "He may be a leader in society, but he's as selfish as a sucking calf!"
"You seem to know him pretty well," commented Maurice. "I suppose you've seen him often."
"Never saw him in my life till this minute. Young man, I'll tell you this, though. Every woman with any brains knows what a man is the minute she claps eyes on him; only if he's good-looking, or awful wicked, or makes love to her, or forty thousand other things, she'll deny to herself that she knows any bad about him."
"Then it seems to be much the same thing as if your sex weren't gifted with such extraordinary insight," Maurice responded, laughing.
"If women didn't cheat themselves there wouldn't be no marriages," Mehitabel retorted, grinning, and retired in evident delight over her success in repartee.
As for Maurice, he became wonderfully grave the moment he was left alone.