"What?" he asked, fatuously.
"Rubbish!" she said. "Don't pretend not to understand. I knew YOU knew what was up the moment you came into the room and looked at me. … You—dodged."
"I'm sure I didn't," he replied, thrown from his equilibrium by her directness, her frankness, so like her father's landslide directness.
"Yes, you dodged. You had made up your mind never to be caught like this again, hadn't you? To make it your life work to keep out of my way?"
He dared to look at her directly, and was reassured.
"Something like that," he responded, with miraculous frankness for a
Foote.
"Just because they want us to we don't have to do it," she said, reassuringly.
"I suppose not."
"Suppose?"
"I'm a Foote, you know, Bonbright Foote VII. I do things I'm told to do. The last six generations have planned it all out for me…. We do things according to inherited schedules…. Probably it sounds funny to you, but you haven't any idea what pressure six generations can bring to bear." He was talking jerkily, under stress of emotion. He had never opened his mouth on this subject to a human being before, had not believed it possible to be on such terms with anybody as to permit him to unbosom himself. Yet here he was, baring his woes to a girl he had known but an hour.