"That means that you have taken a dislike to me," she said.
"I didn't mean it that way," said Hughie, much distressed,—"really!"
"Anyhow, it means that you haven't made up your mind about me," persisted Joan.
"That is true," admitted Hughie, who was no hand at fencing.
"Well, do it soon," said Miss Gaymer. "I'm not accustomed to being put on trial. I may mention to you," she added complacently, "that I am considered a great success. Do you know what Jacky Penn told me?"
"No; what?" inquired Hughie perfunctorily. He was beginning to understand the inwardness of Mildred Leroy's warning that the girl beside him had not yet found her feet.
"He told me," said Joan, with an unaffected sigh of pleasure, "that the men here all call me 'The Toast.' What do you say to that?"
"A Toast," said Hughie rather heavily, "is usually 'an excuse for a glass.' I shouldn't like to think of you merely as that, Joey."
Miss Gaymer eyed her guardian with undisguised exasperation.
"Hughie, you have got fearfully old-maidish in the last nine years," she said. "Where have you been? In any decent society?"