“Claire,” corrected the girl coldly, insisting on a point for which she had had to fight all her life.
Mr. Braddock gulped.
“I shall—er—I shall speak to your mother,” he said.
It was a futile threat, and Claire signified as much by jerking her shoulder in a scornful and derogatory manner before stumping back to the house with all the honours of war. She knew—and Mr. Braddock knew that she knew—that complaints respecting her favourite daughter would be coldly received by Mrs. Lippett.
Mr. Braddock withdrew from the window, and presently appeared in the garden, beautifully arrayed.
“Why, Willoughby,” said Kay admiringly, “you look wonderful!”
The kindly compliment did much to soothe Mr. Braddock’s wounded feelings.
“No, really?” he said; and felt, as he had so often felt before, that Kay was a girl in a million, and that if only the very idea of matrimony did not scare a fellow so confoundedly, a fellow might very well take a chance and see what would happen if he asked her to marry him.
“And the speech sounded fine.”
“Really? You know, I got a sudden fear that my voice might not carry.”