"Great heavens! There isn't another woman I'd take such a drubbing from!"
"But you do take it," she said, with one of her rare and generous smiles which few people ever saw, and of which few could believe her facially capable.
And she slipped her arm through his and led him slowly toward the library where already Farris was announcing luncheon.
"By heck!" he repeated later, in the billiard room, to a group of interested listeners. "Aunt Hannah is all that they say she is. She suddenly let out into me, and I give y'm'word she had me over the ropes in one punch—tellin' me what beasts men are—and how we're not fit to associate with nice girls—no b'jinks—nor fit to marry 'em, either."
Cairns laughed unfeelingly.
"Oh, you can laugh!" muttered Ledyard. "But to be lit into that way hurts a man's self-respect. You'd better be careful or you'll be in for a dose of Aunt Hannah, too. She evidently has no use for any of us—barrin' the Captain, perhaps."
That gentleman smiled and picked up his hockey stick.
"There's enough ice left—if you don't mind a wetting," he said. "Shall we start?"
Desboro rose, saying carelessly: "The Hammertons and Clydesdales are coming over. I'll have to wait for them."
Bertie Barkley turned his hard little smooth-shaven face toward him.