"Even Mrs. Emerson?"
"Even Mrs. Emerson. Moreover, I want to observe the daughter—and the table is an excellent place."
"You want to observe the daughter?" Pendleton inflected.
"Sure I do! Isn't there a campaign on to marry her to our old friend Devereux? I want to look her over—and, as I said, I don't know a better place than the table for the display of one's manners and inherent breeding—or the lack of them."
"Don't you think that Devereux is competent to judge for himself?"
"No one is competent to judge where the heart is involved; but don't think that I shall offer him advice—Lord, no! I only want to see for my own satisfaction—and Miss Emerson is a strikingly handsome girl."
"The latter is nearer the truth, I reckon!" laughed Pendleton. "I should think you would have had a surfeit of pretty girls in three years' picking abroad."
"I never get surfeited with pretty girls. I'm like the chap in the song—'Oh, you dear delightful women, why, I simply love you all.' That's piffle, too, I suppose."
"Not at all," Pendleton observed. "I should call it a simple ebullition of spirits—otherwise plain drunk."
"Who—I?"