"Sit down, Mr. Merriam," she said, kindly enough but in a manner that demanded unquestioning obedience.
Then she rose and entered Mollie June's bedroom but immediately returned.
"Mollie June is dressing for dinner," she said. An instant's pause. Then, looking hard at Merriam, "She's a lovely child."
Both the look and the final word provoked Merriam to a sort of resentment.
"I don't believe she's as much of a child as you think," he said boldly.
"It depends on the point of view, no doubt," said Aunt Mary drily.
Then she began to ask him about himself, his family, his own life, on the farm of his boyhood, at college, and at Riceville--all those facts which Alicia had so much more tactfully elicited in the private dining room off the Peacock Cabaret the night before and some others in which Alicia had not been interested. Merriam had nothing to be ashamed of and spoke up promptly and manfully in his replies, wondering in the back of his mind the while what inscrutable thought or purpose prompted Aunt Mary in her catechising. He little dreamt that the whole course and happiness of his life turned on the showing he was able to make in this odd examination.
There is no doubt that Aunt Mary--whatever her idea may have been--was satisfied. When at length she had no more questions to ask the expression of her eyes, though they still rested on him, was almost one of absence. She drew a deeper breath than was her wont--suggestive, at least, of a sigh.
"You give a good account of yourself," she said. "You are worthy of the Norman blood."
Greater praise than that no man could have from Aunt Mary, as Merriam dimly realised.