“He’s rather rough on us old families,” I intimated.
“Sour grapes,” explained Kate. “The wouldn’t-because-I-can’t-be people always stir up the sediments of my Cortelyou temper.”
“I thought you liked the family temper,” I suggested.
“In anybody but myself,” she told me. “With others it’s really a great help. Now, with my brothers, I know just how far I can go safely, and it’s easy to manage them.”
“I suppose that accounts for the ease with which you manage me.”
She laughed, and replied demurely, “I think we are both on our good behaviour.”
“I’m afraid our respective and respected parents won’t think so.”
This made her look serious, and I wondered if her father could be brute enough ever to lose that awful temper of his at such a charming daughter. The thought almost made me lose mine. “They can’t blame you,” I assured her. “Your father—”
“Is sure that everything I do is right,” she interjected, “but Mrs. Pellew?”
“We will not make Mrs. Pellew—”