"I mean—the things you love most I simply forget about."
"I think you do!" he coincided heartily. "You have certainly forgotten all about ordinary propriety to-night."
At this I waxed furious again.
"How I hate that word propriety!" I said. "And there's another one—a companion word which I never mean to use until I'm past sixty! It's Platonic!—Those two words remind me of tarpaulins in a smuggler's boat because you can hide so much underneath them!"
"I'm not speaking of hiding things," he fired back, as angry as I was. "And, if you want to know the truth, I rather admire your honesty in not trying to pretend that your flirtation with this Englishman is Platonic!—Yet that certainly doesn't throw any more agreeable light upon this happening to-night.—You did go to Loomis!"
I could scarcely keep from laughing at this, for his anger seemed to be centered in one spot—like an alderman's avoirdupois! He was thinking far less of losing me than of the indelicacy of my going to Loomis.
"Yes," I answered, trying to make my words inconsequential. "Old man Hudson sent me!"
His hat, which he had held deferentially in his hand all this time, suddenly fluttered to the ground.
"What!"
"Didn't you and mother know that?" I asked.