“Don’t paint! Don’t she? I’d like to know if she don’t; but she does it like an artist, like an old master, in fact.”
“Or like a young mistress,” said Tom, and then laughed at his own wit.
Now, it so happened that John was sitting at an open window above, and heard occasional snatches of this conversation quite sufficient to impress him disagreeably. He had not heard enough to know exactly what had been said, but enough to feel that a set of coarse, low-minded men were making quite free with the name and reputation of his Lillie; and he was indignant.
“She is so pretty, so frank, and so impulsive,” he said. “Such women are always misconstrued. I’m resolved to caution her.”
“Lillie,” he said, “who is this Danforth?”
“Charlie Danforth—oh! he’s a millionnaire that I refused. He was wild about me,—is now, for that matter. He perfectly haunts my rooms, and is always teasing me to ride with him.”
“Well, Lillie, if I were you, I wouldn’t have any thing to do with him.”
“John, I don’t mean to, any more than I can help. I try to keep him off all I can; but one doesn’t want to be rude, you know.”
“My darling,” said John, “you little know the wickedness of the world, and the cruel things that men will allow themselves to say of women who are meaning no harm. You can’t be too careful, Lillie.”