He was really anxious to be friendly that day, poor devil, who had never had a friend in his life, or ever been one!
“No, I’m not a snob,” he went on. “That’s a feminine failing. But I don’t like my family making bosom friends of people I don’t know.”
“He’s certainly not a bosom friend,” said Claudine, “and as for your not knowing him, how could that be helped, when you weren’t here?”
“Very well! Very well!” he said, impatiently. “We won’t argue. Introduce the fellow to me, and I’ll soon see what sort he is.”
No one could imagine Claudine’s dread and misery. She knew very well what Gilbert would think of Mr. Stephens.
His solitary little table was near a window, and a vagrant breeze that ruffled his light hair gave him a boyish and untidy look. He had a book propped up before him and he was eating absent-mindedly. She pointed him out with a smile which was the equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders, throwing the poor young fellow to the wolves.
“There he is, Gilbert!” she said.
Gilbert stared incredulously at the cheerful young man, with sleeves rolled up on his sunburnt arms, coatless, innocently absorbed in his book.
“What!” he said. “That fellow!”
“I told you he wasn’t quite—”