"Did she not write a letter asking you to meet her?" I asked.
"Why—y-e-s," returned John.
"And," I continued, "has she not from the first sought you?"
"It almost seems to be so," answered John, "but notwithstanding the fact that one might say—might call—that one might feel that her conduct is—that it might be—you know, well—it might be called by some persons not knowing all the facts in the case, immodest—I hate to use the word with reference to her—yet it does not appear to me to have been at all immodest in Mistress Vernon, and, Sir Malcolm, I should be deeply offended were any of my friends to intimate—"
"Now, John," I returned, laughing at him, "you could not, if you wished, make me quarrel with you; and if you desire it, I will freely avow my firm belief in the fact that my cousin Dorothy is the flower of modesty. Does that better suit you?"
I could easily see that my bantering words did not suit him at all; but I laughed at him, and he could not find it in his heart to show his ill-feeling.
"I will not quarrel with you," he returned; "but in plain words, I do not like the tone in which you speak of her. It hurts me, and I do not believe you would wilfully give me pain."
"Indeed, I would not," I answered seriously.
"Mistress Vernon's conduct toward me," John continued, "has been gracious. There has been no immodesty nor boldness in it."
I laughed again and said: "I make my humble apologies to her Majesty, Queen Dorothy. But in all earnestness, Sir John, you are right: Dorothy is modest and pure. As for her conduct toward you, there is a royal quality about beauty such as my cousin possesses which gives an air of graciousness to acts that in a plainer girl would seem bold. Beauty, like royalty, has its own prerogatives."