Honor’s neat little features puckered in a grimace.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I feel exactly gay, Patricia, but don’t you worry about me. I’ll come up smiling. You wouldn’t have me pine for the sake of a man who wouldn’t have me when he got the chance? I guess Honor P Ward has too much grit for that!”
Pixie nodded slowly.
“But you mustn’t be too hard on him, Honor—It’s natural to want to live in one’s own country, and he loves his work just as you do yours. He’ll be a judge some day—chins like that always do succeed—and ambition means so much to a man. You might have been pleased for your own sake; but would you have thought more of him as a man if he’d thrown it all up and lived on your pickles?”
Honor brought her eyebrows together in a frown.
“Now, Pixie O’Shaughnessy, don’t you go taking his part! I guess I’ve got about as much sense of justice as most, and in a few months’ time I’ll see the matter in its right light, but for the moment I’m injured, and I choose to feel injured; and I expect my friends to feel injured too. I’ve offered myself to an Englishman, and he’s refused to have me. There’s no getting; away from that fact, and it’s not a soothing experience for a free-born American. I’m through with Englishmen from this time forth!”
“Except Stanor! Be kind to Stanor. He’s always liked you, Honor, and he knows no one in America. Promise me to be kind to Stanor, and see him as often as you can!”
Honor’s brown eyes searched Pixie’s face with a curious glance. Then, rising from her chair, she crossed the room and kissed her warmly upon the cheek.
“Yes, I’ll look after him. I’ll do anything you want, and nothing you don’t want. You can trust me, my dear. Remember that, won’t you? You’re a real sweet thing, Patricia!”
Pixie laughed with characteristic complacence.