"Philip! What did you say?"
"I said," he replied mendaciously, "that you have behaved foolishly and riskily, and with no dignity whatever. 'Young lady-like' indeed! Riding about the country bareback, with your hair down, and your skirts above your knees! What do you suppose those strange men thought of that?"
"I think they liked it," she said candidly. "They looked as if they did. You see neither of them is my spiritual pastor and master, so they don't have to be shocked by me." She gave him a demure, sidelong glance.
"I am not shocked either, you know that. Only—" said Philip.
"Only you wish I were more like Jemmy," she pouted. "Stiff, and proper, and prim—"
"I don't want you to be like any one but yourself," he said warmly, and paused. Suddenly he realized the change that was coming over this little playmate of his, half child and half woman as she was. The woman was beginning to predominate. He remembered her with Mag's baby, her almost passionate tenderness, her precocious knowledge of the child's needs. He remembered her manner with the two men they had just left, coquettish, innocently provocative. It had startled him. Evidently, Jacqueline was becoming aware of certain powers in herself which she was not averse to practising upon whatever victims came to hand; even upon her spiritual pastor and master.
"Jacqueline," he said gravely, "you are growing up. You must remember it. Why did you talk to a strange man like that?"
She chuckled. "Like what?"
"You know what I mean."
"Well—because I wanted him to come and see us. He's a neighbor, and we ought to be friends with him. And then—I'll tell you this, Philip, because you're my chum—I wanted that author man to notice me! He treated me like a silly child the last time. He won't again."