Her father emerged from the columns of his paper.
“Of course he knew it, and having heard what a dangerous young person you were, he said to himself, ‘I’d better keep out.’”
“I wish I knew. It would make the score against him considerably heavier.”
“So there is already a score? I hadn’t supposed that the game had begun.”
She nodded.
“Six years ago—but he doesn’t know it. Yes, Dad,” her tone was melodramatic, “for six years I’ve been waiting for Jerry Junior and planning my revenge. And now, when I have him almost in my grasp, he eludes me again!”
“Dear me!” Mr. Wilder ejaculated. “What did the young man do?”
Had Constance turned she would have found Tony’s face an interesting study. But she knew well enough without looking at him that he was listening to the conversation, and she determined to give him something to listen to. It was a salutary thing for Tony to be kept in mind of the fact that there were other men in the world.
She sighed.
“He was the first man I ever loved, Father, and he spurned me. Do you remember that Christmas when I was in boarding-school and you were called South on business? I wanted to visit Nancy Long, but you wouldn’t let me because you didn’t like her father; and you got Mrs. Jerymn Hilliard whom I had never set eyes on to invite me there? I didn’t want to go, and you said I must, and were perfectly horrid about it—you remember that?”