"I'm so glad to--to see you again, Miss Heth," he began, with a loss of ease, twirling the B. Thornton Heth cards between long thin fingers--"to have the opportunity to say.... That is--perhaps you'll let me say--you mustn't think the Works are so--so disappointing as perhaps they may seem, just at first sight. You know--"
Her flushing cheeks stopped him abruptly; and she had not usually found him easy to stop.
"But I didn't think they were disappointing at all! Not in the least!"
The young man's eyes fell.
"Oh!" he said, with noticeable embarrassment. "I--only thought that possibly--as you--you had not happened to be in the factory district for--for some time,--that possibly you might be just a little surprised that things weren't--well, prettier. You know, business--"
"But I wasn't surprised at all, I've said! I knew exactly what it was like, of course. Just exactly. And I consider the Works--very pretty ... for a factory."
She gazed up at him indignantly from beneath a little mushroom hat lined with pink, challenging him to contradict her by look or word. But he swallowed her dare without a quiver.... Good heavens, what girl worth her salt would endure apologies on behalf of her own father, from one so much, much worse than a stranger to her? It may be that V. Vivian liked the lovely Hun the better for that lie.
"Well," he said, compounding the felony with a gallant gulp, "I--I'm glad you weren't disappointed--"
She could certainly have retired upon that with all the honors, but the fact was that the thought of doing so did not at the moment cross her mind. She found the conversation interesting to a somewhat perilous degree.
"I suppose your idea is," she said, and it showed her courage that she could say it, "that a factory ought to be a--a sort of marble palace!"