"What has brought on this metamorphosis?" she asked, dubiously.
"Don't talk about me," he said, wearily, "you will hear gossip ad nauseam. Tell me what you have been doing since I had the pleasure of meeting you?"
"Ah," she said, mournfully," how far off it seems. I was revelling in my release from a brief term of school life, and the freedom of renewed travel with my father. We went to Europe, then we came to New York, and after that went to South America and California. Then my father wanted me to marry—"
Mr. Huntington surveyed her keenly. Her face was distressed, her lips trembling, and she looked as if she were about to cry, yet she controlled herself, and went on in a light tone, "Isn't his mother queer,—she simply detests me. I never had any one do that before."
Mr. Huntington strode to the door, and, finding it ajar, shrugged his shoulders, fastened it, and returned to his seat. "She is a trying woman. If you are as mischievous as in former days, Derrice, I would give a year's salary to have you stay here and help me discipline her."
"But I don't want to stay here," she said, pitifully. "I want my husband to go away and travel with me and my father."
"Can he do that?"
"He does not say. Just now he cannot leave the bank. Perhaps later on I can get him to do it."
"And you would not go without him?"
"Well, you see," she replied, "he is rather fond of me, and if I leave him he says— Well, I fancy he would be lonely."