“I should prefer that appellation to the one he gave you. He said you were strong-minded and a man-hater.”
Even Beth saw the irony of this.
“I asked him,” continued Rob, “what his motive was, and he said ‘Stepdaddy didn’t want Beth to know about the man-hater business,’ so he took that means of throwing you off the track.
“I took the occasion to talk to him like a Dutch uncle, though I don’t know exactly what that is. I think it was the first time anything but brute force had 161 been tried on him. I must have touched some little flicker of the right thing in him, for he was really contrite and seemed to sense a different angle of vision when I explained to him what havoc could be worked by the misinformation of meddlers. He promised me he’d try to overcome his tendency to start things going wrong.”
I made no comment, but it occurred to me that Ptolemy was a shrewd little fellow, and that there had been wisdom back of his strategic speeches to Beth and Rob, for he had taken the one sure course to make them both “take notice.”
“So, Beth,” said Rob, and her name seemed to come quite handily to him, “can’t we cut out the past ten days and begin our acquaintance right?”
“I think we can,” she answered.
“I had better go upstairs,” I suggested, “and tell Silvia that Diogenes doesn’t 162 need a bath, seeing he has been in swimming.”
Neither of them urged me to remain, so I went up to our room and found Silvia tucking Diogenes under cover.
“What did you come up for?” she asked. “I was just coming down to join you.”