"Kathie! You should make two jabs in the air with your forefinger when you quote. Otherwise you're a plagiarist. Let me see." Esmé pondered. "Hugh Merritt," she decided.
Kathleen kept her eyes steady ahead, but a flood of color rose in her face.
"I had an awful fight over it with him before—before I gave in," she said.
"Are you going to marry Hugh?" demanded Esmé bluntly.
The color deepened until even the velvety eyes seemed tinged with it. "I don't know. He isn't exactly popular with Pop, either."
Esmé reached over and gave her friend a surreptitious little hug, which might have cost a crossing pedestrian his life if he hadn't been a brisk dodger.
"Hugh Merritt is a man," said she in a low voice: "He's brave and he's straight and he's fine. And oh, Kathie, dearest, if a man of that kind loves you, don't you ever, ever let anything come between you."
"Hello!" said Kathleen in surprise. "That don't sound much like the Great American Man-eating Pumess of yore. There's been a big change in you since you sidetracked Will Douglas, Esmé. Did you really care? No, of course, you didn't," she answered herself. "He's a nice chap, but he isn't particularly brave or fine, I guess."
A light broke in upon her:
"Esmé! Is it, after all—"