“Oh, pooh! Jacqueline. You mean Judith.”
“Mrs. Beverley is most dignified, charming, and interesting; but little Miss Jacky—”
“I should think she would be a nice playmate for your Jack,” remarked Mrs. Sherrard.
Throckmorton looked awkward, not to say foolish. Had he forgotten his forty-four years, his iron-gray hair, all the scars of life? Jacqueline and Jack were inseparable from the start, and their two heads were close together on the deep, old-fashioned sofa, at that very moment.
“The major stole a march on me the other day, going over to Barn Elms,” remarked Jack, confidentially. “However, I’ll get even with him yet.”
“Oh, how can you talk so about your own father?”
“Why shouldn’t I talk so about my own father?”
“Because it’s not right.”
“Look here, Miss Jacky. Nobody thinks as much of the major as I do—he’s the kindest, noblest, gamest chap alive—but you see, I’m a man, and he’s a man. When he got married at twenty-one, he took the risk of having a son in the field before he was ready to quit himself.”