"I don't care a damn for the whole bunch of you," said Vetch suddenly. "You can go and tell that to the crowd!"
"Well, I'll come back again after I've told them," Gershom replied in an insolent tone; and the next moment the door swung back and he appeared on the threshold.
At sight of Patty and Stephen he attempted to cover his embarrassment with a jest. "Your father and I were having one of our little arguments about a Ladies' Aid Society," he said. "He is beginning to kick against too much ice cream."
"Well, if you argue as loud as that," replied the girl with imperturbable coolness, "it won't be necessary to go and tell it to the crowd."
In an instant she had changed from the sparkling elusive creature Stephen had known into a woman of authority and composure. What an eternal enigma was the feminine mind! He had flattered himself that he had reached the end of her superficial attractions; and in a minute, by some startling metamorphosis, she was changed from a being of transparent shallows into the immemorial riddle of sex. She might be anything, or everything, except the ingenuous girl of the moment before.
"We must learn to lower our voices," said the Governor in a laughing tone. His anger, if it were anger, had blown over him like a summer storm, and the clear blue of his glance was as winning as ever. "I've been looking into the matter of that appointment Judge Page asked me about," he added, "and I think I may see my way to oblige him."
"If you are free for half an hour I'd like to have the talk we spoke of the other day," answered Stephen.
"Oh, I'm free except for Darrow. You won't mind Darrow."
He turned toward the library on the left of the hall; and as Stephen entered the room, after a gay and friendly smile in Patty's direction, he told himself that the man promised to be more interesting than any girl he had ever known.