"In Boston, Dorothy," she said, "I guess Mrs. Tremont is quite a society leader." She said it as if that was an assertion of crushing significance, intended to quiet any possible questionings as to why any young man should think it necessary to comply with the wishes of so great a personage.
"What if she is?" was Dorothy's quick reply; "that doesn't make her any better, does it? I don't see how you can go around with them so much, that's all, Mr. Wooton."
"Oh," he laughed, "I assure you I don't like them so very much myself; but I don't dislike them. And I hate to offend people. They asked me to go!"
They drank their coffee, and watched the twilight settling down. They talked lightly, and laughed a good deal.
"Miss Ware," Wooton asked presently, "you've never been down to Schandau, have you?"
"No. Is it worth while?"
"Immensely! You ought to make the trip."
"Oh, I simply can't begin to get mamma to move from this town. She's perfectly enchanted with it, somehow." She looked at her mother, and patted her on the arm. Mrs. Ware said nothing, only smiled back at her daughter, who went on, "but I'd like it mightily."
"I wish you'd let me show you the place," Wooton persevered. He looked over at Mrs. Ware in a hesitating way. "Perhaps—if Mrs. Ware would rather not stir from the hotel—there would be no objection to Miss Ware making the trip with me? The place is really pretty; the royal residence there is one of the sights. It's only half an hour or so by the steamer. You'd hardly notice our absence; I think she'd enjoy it." He wondered a little whether they would look at him in frigid horror, or take it as a proposition quite in accord with the conventions they were accustomed to. He knew perfectly well that most of the people he knew in the East would have considered him insane if he had ventured such a proposal; but, in regard to these people, and this girl in particular, he remembered that a friend of his had once used a phrase that had struck him at the time as rather good, and that was, perhaps, applicable. The man had declared, half in a spirit of banter, half in chivalrous defense, that the girl of the West paraphrased the old motto to read: "Sans peur, sans reproche et sans chaperon."
To his relief, Mrs. Ware's answer was merely a smile at her daughter, and a "You'll have to see what Dorothy thinks about it, I guess. It's her picnic. If she wares to go—." She left the sentence unfinished, as if to convey the impression that under the circumstances mentioned her own preference would be allowed lapse.