Then Mr. Temple, with an eager timidity so foreign to him that Mrs. Paul suppressed a smile with difficulty, wondered if Miss Graham would have time to go out on the river that evening? He knew she would be awfully busy; but it would be a heavenly evening on the river! He was so promptly assured that she should not have time that the poor fellow looked very blank; in fact, he was distinctly cross in the family circle for the rest of the day. At night he softened and tried to be amiable, for he was constrained to be confidential, and he knew that “Cousin Kate” would not hesitate to snub him unless he made himself agreeable.
“Now, really, don’t you think she’s very unusual?” he insisted, after having told Mrs. Paul all the pleasant things which he could remember that Miss Graham had said to him about her two little pupils.
“If you mean Miss Graham, why, yes, I do think she’s unusual, Dick.”
“Did you ever notice,” said the fatuous Dick, “how softly her hair grows around her forehead? And her eyes—what color are her eyes?”
“I’m sure I can’t say,” Mrs. Paul answered dryly. “Dick, would you mind going in and getting me a shawl? It’s rather cool out here on the terrace.” When he came back she had made up her mind how to proceed. “Now, Dick, listen, I’m not a snob, but”—
“If you are going to say anything about that beautiful creature’s working for her living,” Dick threatened, “you might as well stop on the spot.”
“Of course I’m not going to say anything about her working for her living; why should I? I worked for my living before I married John. You know I’m not a snob, but I do believe in class. I don’t mean to be unkind, and certainly she is a charming girl, and—ladylike. But—there is something, I can’t tell what it is—that seems as if she had not always been used to things”—
Dick Temple said something between his teeth, and his cousin flung her head up.
“Dick!”
“Well, it makes a man want to be emphatic, Cousin Kate,—such nonsense! Class? We’re Americans, thank the Lord! And talk about ancestors, I never saw descent so plainly. Look at the way she carries her head! And her voice, her manner! Darn it, because a girl’s poor”—