"The working-people didn't make any mistake this time," Fred said; "you mustn't blame the plumber,"—the temptation to get back at her grandmother was too much for her—"it was my own cigarette." There was a stunned silence. "Howard Maitland and I were smoking here quite a while," she said, sweetly. "But I thought I'd aired the room out. I'm awfully sorry,—cigarette-smoke does hang about so." ("'Amusement'!" she was saying to herself; "I'll 'amuse' her!")
But Mrs. Holmes was equal to the occasion. She shook an arch and knobby finger at her granddaughter. "Naughty girl! But that's one of the things that is done nowadays," she said; "ladies smoke just as much as gentlemen, don't they, Mr. Weston?"
"More," he declared, gayly; but he watched his two cousins. Had they taken it in that Maitland and Fred had been in the flat together? It had apparently not struck Mrs. Holmes—or if it had, she chose to ignore it; she was talking, with a very red face, about all sorts of things. It seemed a favorable moment to drag his candid ward away, and he did so, with effusive promises to come again soon—all the time looking out of the corner of his eye at the Misses Graham's farewell to Fred. Alas, Miss Mary's were hardly visible.
But Miss Eliza followed them into the hall, and put a hand on Fred's arm: "I don't mind the smell of smoke in a room half as much as I do on a girl's lips," she said, smiling; "they ought to be like roses." Then she gave the angular young arm a little pat and ran back.
"What a duck she is!" Fred said, honestly moved; "I wish I hadn't let out at Grandmother!"
Her repentance did not soothe Arthur Weston. "I'd like to shake you," he said, as they got into the elevator.
"Me? What's your kick? I thought I behaved beautifully! I kissed an inch of powder off Grandmother's cheek. There's no satisfying you. I supposed you'd give me a bunch of violets, with 'For a good girl,' on the card. Don't be an old maid! Even Miss Graham isn't. She's a dear!"
"I may be an old maid, but you are an imp!" he said. In the taxi, as they rushed, with open windows, across the city back to Payton Street, he spoke more gravely. "You ought not to have gone wandering around in vacant apartments with Maitland." He was really annoyed, and showed it.
Frederica was equally annoyed. "I am a business woman. Howard was obliging enough to take me around in his car. In the flat we talked for a while. Why shouldn't we? If he had been a girl, I suppose we could have sat there until midnight and you would have never peeped!"
"But may I call your attention to the fact that he's not a girl?"