“Possibly.”
“You are real good,” said Geraldine coldly. “But what gave you the idea that Harry and I were meaning to——?”
“Something in your eyes—your fine, daring eyes. I read you as you read your father, you see?”
“Well, then, Mr. Thorold, there’s something wrong with my fine, daring eyes. I’m just the last girl in all America to do anything—rash. Why! if I did anything rash, I’m sure I should feel ever afterwards as if I wanted to be excused off the very face of the earth. I’m that sort of girl. Do you think I don’t know that father will give way? I guess he’s just got to. With time and hammering, you can knock sense into the head of any parent.”
“I apologise,” said Cecil, both startled and convinced. “And I congratulate Mr. Vaux-Lowry.”
“Say. You like Harry, don’t you?”
“Very much. He’s the ideal type of Englishman.”
Geraldine nodded sweetly. “And so obedient! He does everything I tell him. He is leaving for England to-night, not because father asked him to, but because I did. I’m going to take mother to Brussels for a few days’ shopping—lace, you know. That will give father an opportunity to meditate in solitude on his own greatness. Tell me, Mr. Thorold, do you consider that Harry and I would be justified in corresponding secretly?”
Cecil assumed a pose of judicial gravity.
“I think you would,” he decided. “But don’t tell anyone I said so.”