"You know, I didn't expect this--I mean having a room all to myself. Never."
And then, while I gasped, she went on, sweetly and calmly:
"Why, Mr. Lightnut, Brother Jack would throw seventeen thousand fits if I went to a hotel, because--" She laughed deliciously. "Well, I promised him that if he would let me come home by New York I would stay right here with you and behave myself."
"Behave yourself!" I echoed indignantly. "Why, look here, do you mean to say Jack Billings--your own brother, you know--thought you wouldn't--er,--do that at a hotel?"
"_Thought?_" Her laugh this time was explosive. "No, he never thought it; he _knew_ I wouldn't! He knew I would be tearing around all night with the boys--_that's_ what!"
And dash me, if she didn't throw herself back with a kind of swagger, by Jove!
"Why, you--you wouldn't do such a thing!" I uttered faintly.
"Wouldn't I?" She straightened suddenly, and her lovely blue eyes narrowed at me. "Say, Mr. Lightnut, I don't want you to get me sized up wrong. I'm none of your little waxy gardenias--not much! When I'm in New York, it's the bright lights and the Great White Way for mine--yes, sir, every time!"
And she gave me a blow on the shoulder that was like a stroke from a man's arm. It sent me down into my chair.
"If you don't believe me," she added, her face shining with excitement, "just you ask Jack about last summer when I came through--about that joy ride to Coney with three Columbia fellows, and how we got pinched. Oh, mamma, but didn't Jack swear at me!"
I heard a noise by the door. Jenkins stood there, his eyes sticking out like hard boiled eggs.
"I--I'm back, sir," he said rather falteringly. "Beg pardon, sir; just thought you'd want to know. I didn't know you--h'm!" And with an odd look and a little cough Jenkins slipped away. But I scarcely noticed him at all.
My brain was buzzing like a devilish hive of bees, don't you know. By Jove, this was something _awful_!
And yet--and yet--Her frank, sweet face met mine with a clear light that there was no mistaking. There was no going behind it--she was a thoroughbred, a queen--a _lady_, dash it! I _knew_ it! And I just settled on that, and was ready to die right then and there if anybody dared to dispute it. I didn't care a jolly hang how she talked; it was just nothing--just the demoralizing swagger of a little boarding-school girl trying to show off like her brothers. And her language? Why, just the devilish, natural result of having a coarse, slangy brute like Billings for a brother. Poor little girl! It was a beastly shame.
