“I won’t think you a roughneck or low-brow—whatever those things mean,” Madelaine returned. “And I’m sure we can be friends. You’re not sending him away, mother dear, before I’ve even a chance to get acquainted with the only cousin I have?”
“He’s not your cousin——” Gracia began angrily. She meant to infer that Gordon and Madelaine had nothing in common in the matter of breeding or character. If she had not paused, she could have covered the break and it might not have been noticed. But she did pause and the Fairy Foundling flamed scarlet. For it taunted her with the old, old ache that after all she was a nobody, living on the Theddon generosity—a child from an orphanage—or one who had been bought like a pretty slave for a thousand dollars to ameliorate an affluent woman’s loneliness.
“Then we’ll try to play the game that we are cousins,” Madelaine contended. “I’m sure you’ve been mistaken about Gordon. It isn’t fair to believe people are some things until there’s nothing left for them to do but become those things—is it?”
Gordon and his aunt both sensed the defense in the girl’s argument. Gordon thought he had won in spite of his aunt, already. The girl’s fine grain was lost on him entirely. But not on the woman. She felt that the Fairy Foundling would champion and mother the most foul-souled criminal that ever drew breath. It was her heritage and her danger.
“Gordon,” the woman propounded in an iron voice, “my daughter is of different caliber than the girls you’ve been meeting, whether you’ve been in military school or not. So you keep in mind that you’re a young gentleman or—or—God help you!”
The boy pulled a daffodil from a near-by bowl and tore it to pieces angrily.
“I guess I know class when I see it,” he grumbled.
This was so raw and rude that even Madelaine paled. But she recovered herself and laughed.
“You know what I said about some of the children when they first came to the Home, mother dear? Well—let’s all try—to get—better acquainted.”