"Well, well," said her father, smiling to himself, "he shall know
everything by morning. You'll be astonished, Dick, my boy."
"His name isn't Dick," corrected Daisy.
The professor said, "Isn't it?" in an absent-minded way, and relapsed
into contemplation of my necktie.
I asked Miss Holroyd a few questions about Jack, and was informed that
he had given up law and entered the diplomatic service--as what, I did
not dare ask, for I know what our diplomatic service is.
"In China," said Daisy.
"Choo Choo is the name of the city," added her father proudly; "it's
the terminus of the new trans-Siberian railway."
"It's on the Yellow River," said Daisy.
"He's vice-consul," added the professor triumphantly.
"He'll make a good one," I observed. I knew Jack. I pitied his consul.
So we chatted on about my old playmate, until Freda, the red-cheeked
maid, brought coffee, and the professor lighted a cigar, with a little
bow to his daughter.
"Of course, you don't smoke," she said to me, with a glimmer of malice
in her eyes.
"He mustn't," interposed the professor hastily; "it will make his hand
tremble."
"No, it doesn't," said I, laughing; "but my hand will shake if I don't
smoke. Are you going to employ me as a draughtsman?"
"You'll know to-morrow," he chuckled, with a mysterious smile at his
daughter.--"Daisy, give him my best cigars; put the box here on the
table. We can't afford to have his hand tremble."
Miss Holroyd rose, and crossed the hallway to her father's room,
returning presently with a box of promising-looking cigars.
"I don't think he knows what is good for him," she said. "He should
smoke only one every day."
It was hard to bear. I am not vindictive, but I decided to treasure up
a few of Miss Holroyd's gentle taunts. My intimacy with her brother was
certainly a disadvantage to me now. Jack had apparently been talking
too much, and his sister appeared to be thoroughly acquainted with my
past. It was a disadvantage. I remembered her vaguely as a girl with
long braids, who used to come on Sundays with her father and take tea
with us in our rooms. Then she went to Germany to school, and Jack and
I employed our Sunday evenings otherwise. It is true that I regarded
her weekly visits as a species of infliction, but I did not think I
ever showed it.
"It is strange," said I, "that you did not recognise me at once, Miss
Holroyd. Have I changed so greatly in five years?"
"You wore a pointed French beard in Paris," she said--"a very downy
one. And you never stayed to tea but twice, and then you only spoke
once."
"Oh!" said I blankly. "What did I say?"
"You asked me if I liked plums," said Daisy, bursting into an
irresistible ripple of laughter.
I saw that I must have made the same sort of an ass of myself that most
boys of eighteen do.
It was too bad. I never thought about the future in those days. Who
could have imagined that little Daisy Holroyd would have grown up
into this bewildering young lady? It was really too bad. Presently the
professor retired to his room, carrying with him an armful of drawings,
and bidding us not to sit up late. When he closed his door Miss Holroyd
turned to me.
"Papa will work over those drawings until midnight," she said, with a
despairing smile.
"It isn't good for him," I said. "What are the drawings?"
"You may know to-morrow," she answered, leaning forward on the table
and shading her face with one hand. "Tell me about yourself and Jack in
Paris."