"Now my chief interest," said Wyman, who was at the stage where he put life in capital letters, and cherished harmless ideas about his own deep understanding of the human heart, "is in Mrs. Hubers. There, I fancy,"—it was his capital letter voice—"is a woman who understands."
"A dandy girl," said Georgia, briskly.
"She has the artistic temperament?" he pursued.
"Oh, not disagreeably so," she retorted.
"You see," turning to Beason, who was plainly impatient at this shifting to anything so irrelevant as a wife, "I play quite a leading part in Dr. Hubers' life. I'm his cousin—that's the accident of birth; but I handed over to him his wife, for which he owes me undying gratitude. I'm looking for something really splendid from Europe."
"I wish I hadn't gone home so early that spring," sighed Wyman. "I'd like to have seen that little affair. It must have been the real thing in romance."
"But it was nothing of the sort! It was the most disgraceful thing I ever had anything to do with."
"Now Georgia," protested her mother, "you know you are so apt to be misunderstood."
"Well I couldn't be misunderstood about this! Oh, it was awful!—the suddenness of it, you know. You see Miss Stanley was an old college friend of mine. In fact, I roomed at their house,"—she paused and seemed to be thinking of other things—serious things. "A year ago last spring," she went on, "Ernestine stopped here on her way home from New York. Her parents had died, but an old aunt lived in their house, and she was going to see her. I had always told her about Karl, but she had never met him, because when Ernestine and I were together so much, he was in Europe. So I wanted her to meet him—well, principally because he was a good deal of a celebrity, and I thought it would be nice. I'll be real honest and confess it never occurred to me there would be anything exciting doing. Well, Karl didn't want to come. First he said he would, and then he telephoned he was busy. So I just went over to the laboratory and got him. I told him he was expected, and if he didn't come, mother and I never would forgive him. He washed his hands and came along, grumbling all the way about how one's relatives interfered with one's life—oh, Karl and I are tremendously frank, and then when he got here—well, I'll just leave it to mother."
"He did seem to be greatly impressed with Georgia's friend." said Mrs.
McCormick, consciously conservative.