“As for that, I am rather grand, to-night,” he laughed, stealing admiring glances at her as he led the way through the crowded station to the street. “I’m down here in the governor’s new auto to meet a long-lost country cousin, and I find a fairy princess, instead. What more could a fellow ask?”
“Not an automobile! Truly? I’ve never been in one, yet.”
“Oh, well, you’ll do a lot of things in Channing that you never did in Brookdale. Here’s the machine. Just step in and be comfortable while I look after your baggage.”
He gave an order to the respectful chauffeur and disappeared into the station, while Jacquette Willard looked after him, feeling that she had suddenly entered a new world. She sat up very straight, brushing a bit of lint from the jacket of her wine-coloured travelling-gown, and, more than once, she patted the sunny mist of hair about her face, and put both hands to the jaunty hat, to make sure that it was poised exactly as it should be. In a few minutes her tall cousin came back and seated himself beside her, and then they went spinning along the brilliantly lighted streets toward her uncle’s home.
“It seems like a fairy story to me, Quis,” she said, looking up at him with a shy smile.
“Didn’t I tell you you were the princess?” Marquis answered gaily. “Do you know?—there’s a pink rose in our conservatory that looks just like you, only it lacks the eyes—poor rose! Your pictures showed your hair was curly, but they didn’t tell the gold colour of it, and those stunning braids didn’t show, either. Wonder if the girls will make you put up your hair?”
“Oh, the bunch I’ll show you, to-morrow morning. Nicest girls in Marston High.”
“High school, do you mean?”
“Yes; we never stop to put on the school, though. Everybody knows Marston. It’s famous all through the west for its football team. I’m mighty glad you came while I’m a senior here, instead of waiting till next year when I’ll be off at college. I can give you no end of pointers. By the way, I liked it just now, when you said ‘Quis.’ I suppose you know about your mother and my father getting our Frenchy sounding names out of the same old novel? Funny, wasn’t it? I have to answer to ‘Markee’ about half the time. The fellows do it to guy me. I wonder what you’d think if I should call you ‘Jack’?”