She shot a shy glance at him under her lashes. "It was awfully nice of you to catch on so quickly."
"It was interesting, but difficult. But you are a courageous girl! Suppose I hadn't caught on?"
"I know! Wouldn't it have been awful? Or suppose you hadn't been--nice, you know! But I had to take some chances. You don't know how dreadful it is to stay shut up inside of walls like that, and never to go outside unless we go with one of the teachers, and never to see any callers unless they are relatives. And I haven't any relatives at all except Aunt Meg and Uncle Joe and Cousin Jennie at Columbus, so I never had the excitement of going downstairs to see some one in the reception room, while the girls hung over the banisters to see what he looked like when he went away." She stole a gratified glance at Lyon's straight figure and good clothes. "When Miss Elliott came to tell me about your letter, I was just wild to think that I should have to miss this splendid chance, just because you hadn't said you were a relative, so--so--"
"I see."
"Do you think it was very awful?"
"If it had been anyone else but me, it would have been awful, but since it was I, and since you are never going to do it again for anyone else,--"
"Oh, never, never!"
"I think I was in great luck," said Lyon simply. And certainly the words were well within the limit of his feelings on the subject. He had barely hoped to establish some sort of an entrée to the school. That the Miss Kittie whose name he had selected at random from the catalogue should be so pretty, so funnily absurd, so unusually entertaining, was pure gratuity on the part of Fate. And what a daringly reckless child it was! Modest as Lyon was, he couldn't help recognizing that it was luck for Kittie as well as for himself that it was he and not some one else who had been admitted so confidently to this fascinating intimacy. A dawning sense of responsibility for this irresponsible new cousin made him defer the real object of his inquiry to extend the field of his acquaintance with Kittie herself.
"How long have you been at school here. Kittie?"
"I came last September. Why?"