"Genevieve," reproved her father. "This is most unlike you."
"Unlike my former frivolous, pampered self!" cried the girl. "I'm no longer a silly debutante, papa. I've lived the grim hard realities of life—there on that dreadful coast—with him. I'm a woman."
"You child! You're not even twenty-one."
"I am old—older than the centuries, papa—old enough to know my own mind." She turned to Blake. "You were right, Tom. This is my home—legally mine. You are welcome to stay."
"Mr. Leslie!" interposed Lord James, before her father could reply. "One moment, if you please. I have told you that Mr. Blake and I are friends. More than that, we are intimate friends—chums. I wish to impress on you the very high esteem in which I hold him, the more than admiration—"
"Chuck it, Jimmy," put in Blake.
Lord James concluded in a tone of polite frigidity. "And since you place conditions on his welcome to your house, permit me to remark that I prefer his acquaintance to yours." He bowed with utmost formality.
"H'm!" rasped Mr. Leslie. "You should understand, sir. Had you not interrupted me—" He abruptly faced Blake. "You, at least, will understand my position—that I have some reason—It is not that I wish to appear discourteous, even after this morning. You've apologized; I cannot ask you to go—I do not ask you to go. Yet—"
"If you please, papa," said Genevieve with entrancing sweetness.
"Well?"