“We’ll keep you on a throne of your own,” said Thurlow—“at least, while you are here.” (It was quite as if he had been a Southern man.)
But Bates was not to be diverted from his idea. “Won’t you let me go and get him?” he inquired.
“Does he visit in dormitories?”
“Really, Miss Castleman, I’m not joking. Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”
“Why should I?”
“Because—we’d all like to see what would happen.”
“From what you say about him,” remarked Sylvia, “he sounds to me like a bore. Or at any rate, a young man who is in need of chastening.”
“Exactly!” cried Bates. “And we’d like to see you attend to it!”
The time had come, Sylvia thought, to play upon a new string. She looked about her with a slightly distrait air. “Don’t you think,” she inquired, “that we are giving him too large a portion of this charming afternoon?”
The men appreciated the compliment; but the other theme still enticed them. Said Jackson, “We can’t give up the idea of the chastening, Miss Castleman.”