“Annette van Elstine is your cousin? Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“Oh, for reasons. I should think you’d see. Why should I claim Annette as a cousin? One of the smartest women in New York, I’m told she is.”
“One of the very smartest. She could do anything for you.”
“So there you are! When you think of what I was when you first met me—what I am still, really—” It seemed to me, however, that I had found my opening, so I went on in another vein. “I met Annette’s father in the street one day, not long ago, and he went by without recognizing me. Have I changed very much—since the spring?”
“I should know you anywhere, Frank; but Coningsby and Christian were saying last week that they wouldn’t take you to be the same man any more.”
“Did they mean morally—or physically?”
“Oh, they meant in looks. They said they’d never seen any one in whom good clothes and a straight life had so thoroughly created a new man.”
“So that you think my uncle might reasonably—”
“Pass you without recognition? Oh, Lord, yes! Besides, your mustache changes you a lot. I’d shave that off again if I were you; and you want to get back to your old self.”