"Well, what do you think they have been doing?" I asked saucily.
I had on a particularly fetching gown and knew I was looking my best. Jack, however, looked me over with his head on one side.
"Well, I don't know, Kitty," he said slowly. "That is a stunning sort of dress you have on—not so pretty, though, as that old blue muslin you used to wear last summer—and your hair is pretty good. But you look rather disdainful and, after all, I believe I prefer Thrush Hill Kitty."
How like Jack that was. He never thought me really pretty, and he is too honest to pretend he does.
But I didn't care. I just laughed, and we sat down together and had a long, delightful, chummy talk.
Jack told me all the Valleyfield gossip, not forgetting to mention that Mary Carter was going to be married to a minister in June. Jack didn't seem to mind it a bit, so I guess he couldn't have been particularly interested in Mary.
In due time Alicia sailed in. I suppose she had found out from Bessie who my caller was, and felt rather worried over the length of our tête-à-tête.
She greeted Jack very graciously, but with a certain polite condescension of which she is past mistress. I am sure Jack felt it, for, as soon as he decently could, he got up to go. Alicia asked him to remain to dinner.
"We are having a few friends to dine with us, but it is quite an informal affair," she said sweetly.
I felt that Jack glanced at me for the fraction of a second. But I remembered that Gus Sinclair was coming too, and I did not look at him.