"You do—if she does," replied Lad. "Lots of times you'd never notice what I say if she didn't look at you and laugh. Then you burst out and laugh too—to please her, I suppose," he added.
The Philosopher glanced at me over the boy's head. "Here's a pretty sharp observer," said he, "with a gift at analysis. I didn't know before that I take my cue from the Gay Lady—or from any one else—when it comes to laughing at jokes. Try me with one now, Lad, and see if I don't laugh—all by myself."
Lad shook his head. "That wouldn't be any good. I'd know you didn't mean it. She always means it. Besides—she thinks things are funny that you don't. She's 'most as good as a boy—and I don't see how she can be, either," he reflected, "because she isn't the least bit like one."
"You're right enough about that," observed the Philosopher. "She's essentially feminine, if ever a girl was."
"Girl!" repeated the Lad. "She isn't a girl. That is—I thought she was, till she told me herself she wasn't. She's twenty-seven."
The Philosopher grinned. The Skeptic, who had lit his pipe and was puffing away at it, sitting on the settle with his back to the sunset—which was unusually fine that evening—gave utterance to a deep note of derision at the Lad's point of view. I smiled, myself. If ever there was an irresistible combination of the girlish and the womanly it was to be found in our Gay Lady. As to her looks—even the blooming youth of Althea, and the more cultivated charms of Camellia, had not made the Gay Lady less lovely in our eyes, although she was by no means what is known as a "beauty."
"She's a whole lot nicer than any of those girls we've had here this summer," the Lad went on. He seemed to have the floor. There could be no doubt that the subject of his musings was of interest to all his hearers. "And they weren't so bad, either—except Dahlia. I can't stand her," he added resentfully.
The Philosopher shook his head slightly as one who would have said "Who could?" if it had been allowable. The Skeptic removed his pipe from his mouth and gazed intently into its bowl. I felt it my duty to stand by Dahlia, for the sake of the Lad, who must not learn to sneer at women behind their backs.
"There are a great many nice things about Dahlia," I said. "And she has surely given you many good times, Lad. Think how often she has gone out on the river with you—and helped you make kites, and rigged little ships for you——"
"Oh, yes," cried the Lad scornfully, "she'll take me—when she can't get a man!"