"I try to be."
"But you're not. You have a prejudice against me," he insisted, forcing the personal note.
"Oh, you're quite mistaken," she replied; "in fact I think you're rather nice—for a boy." And she went away, leaving him to fume under this indignity.
Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ollnee came in soon afterward, and they all took tea together quite as casually as if they were not on the edge of something very thrilling and profoundly mysterious. Mrs. Joyce politely asked Victor what he had been doing, but his answers were evasive. He made no mention of Pettus, though he was burning with desire to warn her against him.
Soon afterward they went to his mother's room, and once safely inside the door he turned upon her. "Mother, are you going to sit for Pettus to-night?"
"I expect him, but I'm not sitting for him specially."
"I won't have him in the circle! He is a slimy old beast. I hate him—and Mr. Carew warned us against him. He wasn't guessing, mother, he knows that this old four-flusher is up to some deviltry. How did he find you?"
"He called us up."
"I simply will not have him sit with you again, and you must not advise any one to put a cent into his concern. Where are you going to have this performance?"
"I thought of sitting here, but I need the old table. You mended it, didn't you?"