"Good morning, Camille! Leon, this is Mr. Dalton, of whom you have heard so much in my letters. You will scarcely need to scrape acquaintance. What's on the docket this morning, Gypsy?"
Leon had advanced smilingly, with extended hand, prepared to fully like the man who had been such an able assistant to Joyce. But the sudden consciousness that it was only as her employee that this young officer had thought of him, and Joyce's own outspoken declaration as to the correspondence between them, stung George Dalton to the quick.
He was not versed in the ways of society, and this insecurity left him helpless how to act in such an emergency. To ignore it never occurred to him; he could only resent it. He bowed too low to see Leon's extended hand, and saying frostily, "I am honored to meet you, sir!" turned on his heel and stalked out with no further word.
"The coolness of him!" cried Camille, indignantly, while her brother's dark eyes turned astonishedly from one to the other.
"Was I to blame? What ailed him anyhow?" he asked quickly.
"Just a lack of good manners," returned Camille in a disgusted tone. "One never knows where such people will break out next."
Joyce felt something flare up so hotly within her that she had to turn away, so that neither might notice her deep chagrin. She changed the subject entirely by her next remark, and Dalton's name was not again mentioned.
But when Camille proposed the drive the two had planned, Joyce found Lucy's promised call a sufficient excuse to decline going. Her neighbors would not be so easily put off, however.
"How absurd, Joyce! 'Phone her to come later, can't you? We'll be back by two or three o'clock. You know Leon's furlough only lasts a fortnight."
"But it may be a grave matter with Lucy. Have you told Leon of our tragic happenings, here? I believe I have not written them?" giving him a quick glance.