"I went to school there." She named a famous finishing school.
Counsell could not but look his surprise.
"I had a legacy," said Pen demurely. Her father frowned.
"Then you know people in New York?" Counsell said eagerly.
She shook her head. "I have not kept up with the girls."
"She deliberately dropped them!" her father put in with an aggrieved air. "It is the infernal Broome pride. She was most popular in school."
Pen laughed lightly. "Northerners are different," she said. "They don't make a merit of their departed glories."
It was her way of letting Counsell know, without being disloyal to her father, that she did not share in her elder's delusions. The young man looked at her in a new way. It was the first inkling of her real nature that she had given him. Pen felt his look through and through her.
Pendleton took advantage of the pause to secure the floor again, and held it for some time. But he had to eat too, and as soon as he stopped talking to chew, Counsell turned to Pen.
"Isn't it rather lonely here?"