"You were not!" responded Mrs. Fabian, as angrily as the softening nature of salt water would permit. "You were trying to avoid that poor, lonely little fellow."
Kathleen bit her lip as memory presented the stalwart, self-confident artist before her.
"You tell me to take my young cousin if I must, and get his visit over with before you come up there to enjoy yourself. You don't care how much you hurt his feelings."
"Why, mother, wouldn't he think it very natural that I should keep father company?"
"No, certainly not, when he knows that Edgar is here. He doesn't know that Edgar isn't any use to anybody, unless it's Mrs. Larrabee. He'd just think the truth: that you don't want to be there at the same time he is."
"Now, mother, you're so mistaken. He wouldn't even miss me. When he gets the view from our porch he won't know whether I'm there or not."
"Very convenient excuse; but you needn't make any more of them. I understand you, Kathleen. Why shouldn't I, when I taught you to walk? I'm foolish to break down before you. I ought to have more pride; but it's the heat. I'm tired and nervous; and you come home from college with no interest except in what you've left behind you, and want to arrange things so that my guest at the island will have his visit spoiled—"
"Mother, he—"
"Nobody at the cottage but me, and nobody to help entertain him but Mrs. Wright and Eliza Brewster and—"