“I’d see to it that you’d have a good time. Lots of parties and first-rate partners. You’d never sit along the wall there. The fellows would be just breaking their necks to dance with you. And theaters—you like theaters, don’t you?”
“Theaters!” she fairly gasped. “I saw Mazeppa in Virginia, and it was—oh, I haven’t got the words! It was something wonderful.”
“Well, we’ll see ’em all. Better forty times than you saw in Virginia, and every night if you want. It’ll be just as good a time as San Francisco and the Colonel can give two girls like you and Rosamund.”
He looked down at her, smiling. She returned the look and said:
“Why are you so good to us? I don’t understand it!”
“Don’t try to. Never exert your brain in needless ways. That’s a fundamental law for the preservation of health. In this particular case I’d be good to myself. You don’t know what it would be for me to have two nice girls to take around. I’m a lonely old devil, you know.”
“Are you?” she said with a note of somewhat pensive incredulity. “You’ve never been married, have you?”
“Nup,” said the Colonel.
“You’ll have to look upon us as your daughters,” she continued, “or perhaps your nieces.” The path was narrow and she looked into his face with the glance of demure coquetry he was beginning to know and watch for. “Which would you prefer?”
“Daughters,” he said gruffly, looking into the bushes.