"'I don't think he knows what is good for him,' she said. 'He should smoke only one every day.'
"It was hard to bear. I am not vindictive, but I decided to treasure up a few of Miss Holroyd's gentle taunts. My intimacy with her brother was certainly a disadvantage to me now. Jack had apparently been talking too much, and his sister appeared to be thoroughly acquainted with my past. It was a disadvantage. I remembered her vaguely as a girl with long braids, who used to come on Sundays with her father and take tea with us in our rooms. Then she went to Germany to school, and Jack and I employed our Sunday evenings otherwise. It is true that I regarded her weekly visits as a species of infliction, but I did not think I ever showed it.
"'It is strange,' said I, 'that you did not recognize me at once, Miss Holroyd. Have I changed so greatly in five years?'
"'You wore a pointed French beard in Paris,' she said—'a very downy one. And you never stayed to tea but twice, and then you only spoke once.'
"'Oh!' said I, blankly. 'What did I say?'
"'You asked me if I liked plums,' said Daisy, bursting into an irresistible ripple of laughter.
"I saw that I must have made the same sort of an ass of myself that most boys of eighteen do.
"It was too bad. I never thought about the future in those days. Who could have imagined that little Daisy Holroyd would have grown up into this bewildering young lady? It was really too bad. Presently the professor retired to his room, carrying with him an armful of drawings, and bidding us not to sit up late. When he closed his door Miss Holroyd turned to me.
"'Papa will work over those drawings until midnight,' she said, with a despairing smile.
"'It isn't good for him,' I said. 'What are the drawings?'