"Why not?" asked McTavish.
"Why," said Miss MacNish, "she caught cold in the car yesterday, and her poor nose is much too red for company."
"Why do you all try to make her out such a bad lot?"
"Is it being a bad lot to have a red nose?" exclaimed Miss MacNish.
"At twenty-two?" McTavish looked at her in surprise and horror. "I ask you," he said. "There was the porter at Brig O'Dread, and your sister—they gave her a pair of black eyes between them, and here you give her a red nose. When the truth is probably the reverse."
"I don't know the reverse of red," said Miss MacNish, "but that would give her white eyes."
"I am sure, Miss MacNish, that quibbling is not one of your prerogatives. It belongs exclusively to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. As for me—the less I see of The McTavish, the surer I am that she is rather beautiful, and very amusing, and good."
"Are these the matters on which you are so eager to meet her?" asked Miss MacNish. She stood with her back to a clump of dark blue larkspur taller than herself—a lovely picture, in her severe black housekeeper's dress that by contrast made her face and dark red hair all the more vivacious and flowery. Her eyes at the moment were just the color of the larkspur.
McTavish smiled his enigmatic smile. "They are," he said.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Miss MacNish.