“Well, if it isn’t like you, Cecil Maundrell, to come in those awful clothes!” she cried gaily. “Mrs. Montgomery took you for a tramp.”
He laughed nervously as he swung her hand to and fro. “We were burnt out last night, and they’re all I’ve got left. I’ll go on to San Francisco in a day or two and get some.”
“I don’t believe Aunty will let you in the house, much less sit down at the table.”
“Really? How curious! I didn’t know you were so conventional out here. But I’ll go on at once, if you say so.”
“No, no. Only make an elaborate enough apology to Mrs. Montgomery, and she will be as nice as possible. But we’re not only frightfully conventional out here, but rather sensitive. A duke came down to a dinner-party in Menlo once in his shooting-jacket, and we’ve never gotten over it.”
“What a bounder. I’ll go out and eat with the farm hands. I like the rough and ready American very much.”
“I don’t know any, so I can’t argue. You look perfectly splendid, and I’m so glad you’re tall. You really have changed very little, except that you’ve lost your pretty complexion—although I prefer this. You make other men look positively ill. Oh, Cecil, I am glad to see you!”
Her face and voice were animated by the friendliest feeling. Cecil stared hard at her, the smile dying out of his eyes. “You are very beautiful,” he said abruptly.
“I hear a carriage. Some people are coming to call. Let us get out of the way—not that I’m ashamed of you, but you don’t want to meet Mrs. Montgomery before a lot of other people.”
“I don’t want to meet her at all—or anybody else but yourself. To tell the truth, it never occurred to me that there would be any one else, and I knew you wouldn’t mind these old shooting rags. I do look like a tramp. I really never thought about it. I remember people rather stared at me in the train. A flashy-looking fellow in the smoking-car asked me if I was looking for work, and I told him No, I was looking for a fight. He said nothing more until we reached a station, when he asked me to get out and take a drink.”