"We didn't hide! That's only a bay-window alcove,—a part of the ballroom. I have a perfect right to sit out a dance if I choose."
"That young chap was too familiar, anyway. I heard him calling you
'Cousin Patty.'"
"Oh, fiddlestrings, Ken! Don't be an idiot! We were only joking. And
I'm not so old, yet, but what I can let a boy call me by my first name
if I choose. When I'm twenty I'm going to be Miss Fairfield; but while
I'm nineteen anybody can call me Patty,—if I give him permission."
"You're a flirt, Patty."
"All right, Ken. Flirt with me, won't you?" Patty's roguish blue eyes looked at Kenneth with such a frank and friendly glance that he couldn't scold her any more.
"I can't flirt with you, Patty. I'm not that sort. You know very well I've only a plain, plodding sort of a mind, and I can't keep up with this repartee and persiflage that you carry on with these other chaps."
"I don't carry on," said Patty, laughing.
"I didn't say you carried on," returned Kenneth, who took everything seriously. "I meant you carried on conversations that are full of wit and repartee, of a sort that I can't get off."
"Nobody wants you to, you dear old Ken! You wouldn't be half as nice if you were as foolish and frivolous as these society chatterboxes! You've got more sterling worth and real intellect in your make-up than they ever dreamed of. Now, stop your nonsense and come on and dance. But—don't undertake to lecture Patty Fairfield,—she won't stand for it!"
"I didn't mean to lecture you, Patty," and Kenneth spoke very humbly. "But when I saw you tucked away behind those palms, flirting with that yellow-headed rattle-pate, I felt that I ought to speak to you."