"Look here," he demanded; "what has the standing army done to deserve abandonment in a hostile country?"
But she looked at him directly, without response to his playful manner.
"My friend," she said, "this is a pretty free and easy town, as no doubt you have observed, and society is very mixed. But we haven't yet come to receiving women like Mrs. Sherwood, or relishing their being mentioned to us."
"Why, what's the matter with her?" demanded Keith, astonished. "Is she as far from respectability as all that?"
"Respectable! That word isn't understood in San Francisco." She appeared suddenly to soften. "You're a dear innocent boy, so you are, and you've got a dear innocent little wife, and I'll have to look out for you."
Before the deliberate and superior mockery in her eyes as well as in her voice, Keith felt somehow like a small boy. He was stung to a momentary astonishing fury.
"By God—" he began, and checked himself with difficulty.
She smiled at him slowly.
"Perhaps I didn't mean all of that," she said; "perhaps only half of it," she added with significance. "My personal opinion is that you are likely to be a curly haired little devil; and when you look at me like that, I'm glad we're not alone."
She looked at him an enigmatic moment, then turned away from the table near which they had been standing. "Come, help me break up some of this 'twosing,'" she said.