She nodded, seeming to be doing sums with her pencil.
“Men are always simple--when they’re in love.”
I assented. “And women--you’ll agree?--are always simple when they’re
not!”
She finished her sums. “Well, I think he’s foolish!” she frankly stated.
“Didn’t Aunt Josephine think so, too?”
“Aunt Josephine?”
“Miss Josephine St. Michael--my greet-aunt--the lady who embroidered.
She brought me here from the plantation.”
“No, she wouldn’t talk about it. But don’t you think it is your turn
now?”
“I’ve taken my turn!”
“Oh, not much. To say you think he’s foolish isn’t much. You’ve seen him
since?”
“Seen him? Since when?”
“Here. Since the postponement. I take it he came himself about it.”
“Yes, he came. You don’t suppose we discussed the reasons, do you?”
“My dear young lady, I suppose nothing, except that you certainly must
have seen how he looked (he can blush, you know, handsomely), and that
you may have some knowledge or some guess--”
“Some guess why it’s not to be until Wednesday week? Of course he said
why. Her poor, dear father, the General, isn’t very well.”
“That, indeed, must be an anxiety for Johnny,” I remarked.
This led her to indulge in some more merriment. “But he does,” she then
said, “seem anxious about something.”
“Ah,” I exclaimed. “Then you admit it, too!”
She resorted again to the bland, inquiring stare.
“What he won’t admit,” I explained, “even to his intimate Aunt, because
he’s so honorable.”
“He certainly is simple,” she commented, in soft and pensive tones.
“Isn’t there some one,” I asked, “who could--not too directly, of
course--suggest that to him?”
“I think I prefer men to be simple,” she returned somewhat quickly.
“Especially when they’re in love,” I reminded her somewhat slowly.
“Do you want some Lady Baltimore to-day?” she inquired in the official
Exchange tone.
I rose obediently. “You’re quite right, I should have gone back to the
battle of Cowpens long ago, and I’ll just say this--since you asked me
what I thought of him--that if he’s descended from that John Mayrant who
fought the Serapes under Paul Jones--”
“He is!” she broke in eagerly.
“Then there’s not a name in South Carolina that I’d rather have for my
own.”
I intended that thrust to strike home, but she turned it off most
competently. “Oh, you mustn’t accept us because of our ancestors. That’s
how we’ve been accepting ourselves, and only look where we are in the
race!”
“Ah!” I said, as a parting attempt, “don’t pretend you’re not perfectly
satisfied--all of you--as to where you are in the race!”
“We don’t pretend anything!” she flashed back.