Young Morrow turned to find a small woman in brown eying him disdainfully.
"Well—well, I never said it to you, anyway," he retorted gallantly.
"Good reason why. You knew I wouldn't believe you," Sissy declared, floundering in her anger.
"Neither would anybody else."
"The Belle of the Afternoon"
"Why? Because you said it? Didn't know you had such a reputation." Sissy was recovering. "Never mind, Split," she added, heavily sarcastic and assuming a comforting air that maddened Irene, who desired nothing more than to impress her new suitor with the elegant gentility of her manner, her family's, and all that was hers. "Just to have a boy from the city even pretend to think you're good-looking is worth living for. Boys know so much—in the city!" she concluded witheringly.
Mr. Morrow from San Francisco looked bewildered. He had merely paid what he considered a very dashing compliment to one girl, when lo! the other overwhelmed him with her contempt. He turned for consolation to Irene.
"I'll show you how they dance the two-step in the city," he said, holding out his hand as the music began again.
But he had reckoned without that stern censor of sisterly manners, Cecilia Madigan; that loyal Comstocker who resented the implication of her town's inferiority, quite independent of the fact that the insult was not addressed to her but to one who, apparently, welcomed it.