The talk had at last got around to me. Daisy laughed gayly at recollection of the London woman's jesting. Surely never a more innocent, less malicious laugh came from a maiden's merry lips, but it fell sourly on my ears.
"It is easy for people to be clever who do not scruple to be disagreeable," I said, without much relevancy.
"What is this, Douw?" Mr. Stewart turned half-way in his saddle and glanced inquiry back at me. "What is wrong with you? You were as glum all the evening long as a Tuscarora. Isn't the trip with Mr. Cross to your liking?"
"Oh, ay! I shall be glad to go."
It was on my perverse tongue's end to add the peevish thought that nobody would specially miss me, but I held it back.
"He has had a perfect Dutch fit on to-day," said Daisy, with good-natured sisterly frankness; "for all the world such as old Hon Yost Polhemus has when his yeast goes bitter. Whenever I looked down the table to him, at dinner, he was scowling across at poor Walter Butler or Sir John, as if he would presently eat them both. He was the only one who failed to tell me I looked well in the--the citified costume."
"Rather say I was the only one whose opinion you did not care for."
She was too sweet-tempered to take umbrage at my morose rejoinder, and went on with her mock-serious catalogue of my crimes:
"And what do you think, papa? Who should it be but our patient, equable Master Douw that was near quarrelling with Walter Butler, out by the lilacs, this very morning--and in the presence of ladies, too."
"No one ever saw me quarrel, 'ladies' or anybody else," I replied.