"Yes, I do—if you can give me some without asking how many lumps I take—like the inevitable heroine in a British work of fiction—"
"Jim, what a bear you are to-day!" And to Shiela, who was laughing: "He snapped and growled at Gussie Vetchen and he glared and glowered at Livingston Cuyp, and he's scarcely vouchsafed a word to me this afternoon except the civility you have just heard. Jim, I will ask you how many lumps—"
"O Lord! Britain triumphant! Two—I think; ten if you wish, Constance—or none at all. Miss Cardross, you wouldn't say such things to me, would you?"
"Don't answer him," interposed Constance; "if you do you'll take him away, and I haven't another man left! Why are you such a dreadful devastator, Miss Cardross?... Here's your tea, James. Please turn around and occupy yourself with my nephew; I'd like a chance to talk to Miss Cardross."
The girl had seated herself beside Miss Palliser, and, as Wayward moved over to the other table, she gave him a perverse glance, so humourous and so wholly adorable that Constance Palliser yielded to the charm with an amused sigh of resignation.
"My dear," she said, "Miss Suydam and I are going North very soon, and we are coming to see your mother at the first opportunity."
"Mother expects you," said the girl simply. "I did not know that she knew Miss Suydam—or cared to."
Something in the gentle indifference of the words sent the conscious blood pulsing into Miss Palliser's cheeks. Then she said frankly:
"Has Virginia been rude to you?"
"Yes—a little."