“Why, S. K.,” I protested. “I don’t think you’re nice. I’m very fond of Willy!” And for two blocks we didn’t say a word.
“Can’t you see,” he explained after that long silence, “that no man has any right to bother a youngster, or ask her to marry him, no matter how much he wants to, until she’s past the doll’s stage? . . . Here you are, having tea in the nursery, and he butts in where angels would bare their heads, and says you can ‘have him,’ if I recollect correctly. ‘Have him!’ My heavens!”
I was mad. I have not played dolls for years, and I never had tea in the nursery, because we hadn’t any; I always ate with Uncle Frank. I maintained a frigid silence. And then I made talk, deliberately manufactured the article on coldly impersonal lines, while S. K. glared ahead and answered in monosyllables.
“I believe that there is a tablet on the wall of one of the buildings of Columbia, which asserts that the Battle of Harlem Heights was enacted on that spot,” I said. “I’d like to see it.”
“No doubt,” said S. K.
I didn’t know what he meant by that, but he meant something, for his tone was full of implications.
“Perhaps Willy will take me down,” I went on.
“Possibly,” said S. K. dryly.
“He admires Hamilton,” I continued, “and I must take him to the Metropolitan to see that portrait that was painted by Trumbull. What made Burr challenge Hamilton?”
“Political jealousy.”