His eye fell at once upon Angelica.
"Hello!" he said. "What’s the matter? Did they kick you out up-stairs?"
"They sent me down to see how you behaved yourself," she answered, promptly.
She was quite able to hold her own with this young bully, and though her manner was too free and easy to suit Annie, the others were delighted—especially the cook.
"Now will ye be good?" she would cry to the worsted Courtland. "Now you’ve met your match, me lad!"
Angelica enjoyed all this beyond measure. This homely simplicity, combined with the greatest comfort, this atmosphere in which she lost her painful consciousness of inferiority, in which she was among equals and able to breathe freely, invigorated and satisfied her. She grew more and more assured, her sallies more and more outrageous, in a violent badinage that continued until the bell rang and Annie ran off up-stairs. She returned to tell Courtland that he was wanted in fifteen minutes.
"Oh, Gawd!" he groaned. "It’s a tennis tournament to-day. Me sitting out in a blame country road in the hot sun all the afternoon. My Lawd! Don’t I wish that old fool’d learn enough to stay home, or go to the city, to the theayters and stores!"
"And giff you de chance to see your schweetheart?" asked the laundress, coyly.
"Which one?" he demanded, boldly.
"Ye’ll need a lot of thim," said the cook. "For there’s no one girl could put up with ye long. Why are ye not playing your golf to-day, me lord?"