Alma set her lips primly and turned her head first on one side and then on the other to look at the sketch. "I don't think we'll leave it to Mr. Beaton, even if he comes."
"We left the other design for the cover to Beaton," Fulkerson insinuated. "I guess you needn't be afraid of him."
"Is it a question of my being afraid?" Alma asked; she seemed coolly intent on her drawing.
"Miss Leighton thinks he ought to be afraid of her," Miss Woodburn explained.
"It's a question of his courage, then?" said Alma.
"Well, I don't think there are many young ladies that Beaton's afraid of," said Fulkerson, giving himself the respite of this purely random remark, while he interrogated the faces of Mrs. Leighton and Colonel Woodburn for some light upon the tendency of their daughters' words.
He was not helped by Mrs. Leighton's saying, with a certain anxiety, "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Fulkerson."
"Well, you're as much in the dark as I am myself, then," said Fulkerson. "I suppose I meant that Beaton is rather—a—favorite, you know. The women like him."
Mrs. Leighton sighed, and Colonel Woodburn rose and left the room.
In the silence that followed, Fulkerson looked from one lady to the other with dismay. "I seem to have put my foot in it, somehow," he suggested, and Miss Woodburn gave a cry of laughter.