"Oh, well enough. Did you?"
"Yes," said the other, "I did. He's honest, and he stands up so straight—doesn't sort of droop over a girl as if his spine was feeble, like some of 'em do. I like a chap to stand up on his own two pins."
"But his ears, Effie May!"
"Oh, well, what's ears? Just means that his mother forgot to tuck 'em into his cap when he was a baby. Now if his eyes bulged out, that would be another thing. You look out for any man with a bulging eye, Joan."
"Very well," she agreed, "I will. What's dangerous about a bulging eye?"
"Stoopidity, girlie. Just plain bone-headedness. And if there's anything in the world more dangerous than that, I don't know it!—Let's ask your eary young man again to something, shall we?"
"I begin to think he's your eary young man!" smiled Joan.
Sometimes she almost forgot herself and liked her step-mother. There was something so human about the woman....
So it happened that Mr. Blair was delighted and amazed and a little perturbed to receive a few days later a note from Joan Darcy, inviting him to sit on a certain evening in the Darcy box at the impending Horse Show. One of the Darcy guests had failed at the last moment, and Joan had accepted the suggestion that she ask her protégé.
He rushed downstairs to spread the glad tidings to Ellen, who was in turn surprised and a little perturbed. She had not imagined "that woman" so forgiving. But then Ellen was a person who did nothing by halves. Justice to the enemy was not in her creed. Where she hated, she hated.