"How pretty you are looking, ma belle. Your blue silk is the loveliest shade—so becoming; your laces exquisite. Scarlet geraniums in your hair—ah! Lulu, for whose sake?"
"Not for yours," she flashes, with a hot remembrance that he has always liked her in scarlet geraniums.
A slow smile dawns in his eyes—his lips keep their pretense of gravity.
"Her hair is braided not for me,
Her eye is turned away."
he begins to hum.
"All this is not telling me what mischief you were at in Washington?" she interrupts.
"Oh," trying to look demure, but woefully failing, "no mischief at all—only paying off old scores—spoiling Fontenay's fun for him as he did for me last winter.
"Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do."
"Miss Clendenon, you are hard on a poor follow. Why don't you ask her name; if she is pretty; if she is in the 'set;' if she is rich; and so on, ad infinitum?"