Grace asked Paul a great many questions, and did not seem at all shocked to learn that she was escorted by a common telegraph boy.
“Come, Grace,” said Jennie, after a while, “we can’t have you two monopolize each other. My cousin, Mark, solicits the honor of escorting you. Paul, if you are a very good boy, you may walk with me.”
“Did you know, Miss Grace,” said Mark, “that you were walking with a real telegraph boy?”
“Yes, he told me so.”
“I am surprised that my Cousin Jennie should have invited him here.”
“I am not at all. I think him the handsomest boy at the party.”
“There is no accounting for taste,” rejoined Mark, very much disgusted at this laudation of a boy he despised.
“He is so agreeable, too,” added Grace, with malicious pleasure at her companion’s discomfiture.
“He has plenty of cheek!” said Mark. “He tries to make himself very conspicuous. It would be better taste to stand quietly in a corner.”
Later in the evening, Paul became more conspicuous, and Mark became still more disgusted with him.