Mrs. Lauderdale bent her head affectionately and kissed Katharine on the cheek. The young girl tried to draw back, but finding herself against the door, could only turn her face away as much as possible. She did not understand her mother’s manner, and she did not like it.
“But it’s only a moment ago that you were talking about my acting like a flirt!” she objected, vehemently. “If it isn’t flirting to give a man hope when there is none, what is?”
“No, dear; that’s not flirting; it’s only prudence. You may like him better by and by, and I should be so glad! Flirting is drawing a man on as you’ve done with him, and then throwing him over cruelly and all at once.”
“I’ve not drawn him on, mother! You shan’t say that I ever encouraged him.”
“I don’t know. You’ve accepted his flowers and his books—”
“What was I to do? Send them back?”
“You might have told him not to send so many, and so often; you needn’t have read the books. He’d have seen that you didn’t care.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous, you know!”
“No, it’s not, my darling! And as for the flowers, of course you couldn’t exactly send them back, but you weren’t obliged to wear them.”
“Nobody wears flowers now, so it wasn’t probable that I should feel obliged to. Really, mother, you’re losing your head!”