"I get you, Stevie—what's the feminine for Steve, anyhow? You mean that a fellow ought not to make pâté de foie gras out of the goose that lays the golden eggs.—Say, Merry, you're wonderful, you are,—simply wonderful!"
IX
On their return from the Barracks Mrs. Thatcher and Edith Stevens left the men on the piazza and went up-stairs for the ostensible purpose of lying down, but with that ease with which two women change their plans when once alone they found themselves sitting in Marian's room, engaged in a heart-to-heart conversation.
"I really think he might do," Edith remarked, à propos of nothing.
As Mrs. Thatcher was intimately acquainted with Edith's mental processes the remark was more intelligible than might have been expected.
"You don't mean Philip Hamlen?"
Edith laughed. "No; you warned me off of him yesterday. I mean Mr. Cosden."
"At it again?" Marian laughed. "Edith, you are absolutely incorrigible! It has been so long since you have played ducks and drakes with a man that I really believed you had reformed. You are old enough to know better!"