"I don't know, I'm sure. Such searching theological questions are, I suppose, what a man must expect to confront when he forsakes the simple and sequestered life of the chipmunks."
"Well, I am disappointed. I supposed from the expression of your eyes that you were going to say something complimentary."
"My dear Lady Sarah, do compliments grow on street corners in the metropolis that the expectation of them comes so easily?"
"No, indeed—nor in drawing-rooms either, apparently. It is a novelty to meet a man who persists in making his conversation impersonal; but it is really cold-hearted of you to think of remaining so long away from us."
"How can you say so! Absence, you know, makes the heart grow fonder."
"Does it?" The lady made a feint of moving away. "Now if it were only possible for me to absent myself," she said, laughingly.
"Impossible! That is for me to do." And the gentleman withdrew with flattering haste.
In his place appeared a blonde young man, with deep sea-blue eyes and a bright buoyant expression, on whose arm his hostess laid a soft detaining hand. "Were you on the point of asking me to walk about a little?" she inquired. "I am going to accept with alacrity."
The young fellow, who would scarcely have made the suggestion in the face and eyes of several among the most distinguished of his fellow citizens immediately surrounding her, was not slow to respond, though he assumed an expression of alarm.
"I fear this is a deep-laid plot," he remarked. "I saw my father leaving you in haste a moment ago. Probably he has offended you, and you are about to visit the iniquities of the parents upon the children. Pray are you taking me apart in order to spare my sensitive feelings? So kind of you!"