"Bothering me!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Bothering _me_? I should say not!"

I think I must have said it heartily and convincingly, don't you know, for her lovely face looked pleased.

"Because if I am," she said earnestly, "I'll fade away into my own little room there." Her glance ranged toward her door. "It's sure some swell, that room."

"So jolly glad you like it," I said.

"Well, I should say!" Then her beautiful eyes looked at me full.

"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.

Poor misguided girl!

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 coa.r.s.e, slangy brute like Billings for a brother. Poor little girl! It was a beastly shame.

She was watching me curiously, smilingly, as she sat there, her devilishly pretty mouth puckered into a cherry as she softly whistled and drummed her shining nails upon the chair arm.

"I'm afraid I've shocked you," she said. "Jack says you're so good."

Dash it, somehow I felt humiliated! She said it in a way that made me feel like a silly a.s.s, you know.

But she wasn't thinking about me any more. Her eye fell on the tabouret, and her little hand stretched toward it.

"May I?" she said with an arch inquiring glance. "Your cigarettes look good to me. I emptied my case an hour ago."

And I proffered them with a show of alacrity. "Pray, pardon me," I said.

"I--I never thought of you smoking." A chuckle came through the tiny teeth grasping the cigarette. "Thought I was too goody-goody, eh?"

I stammered something--dashed if I know what--and blinked a little gloomily as she drew a brisk fire from the flame I tendered.

Odd thing, by Jove; here I had been going to dinners, world without end, where fellows' wives and girls and sisters smoked cigarettes, and I never had thought a thing about it. But now, somehow, I didn't like it for _her_. Sort of thing well enough for other chaps' girls and sisters, you know, but--well, this was _different_, by Jove! Devilish queer thing, that, what a lot of things seem the caper for them that we don't like for "our own," eh?

And yet--oh, I say, she certainly did look fetching about it--downright bewitching, you know! I think maybe it was because she didn't fumble the thing as if she was afraid of it--as if it was just a red hot coal and going to burn her. Most of them do, you know. No, this girl really seemed to enjoy it. Inhaled the whole thing at three draws and reached for another.

"Do--er--you smoke much?" I ventured anxiously. "Cigarettes, you know?"

She pulled a sparkling half-inch as she shook her little head. I felt awfully relieved. "Not for me," she remarked carelessly. "I prefer a pipe."

"_Pipe!_" I repeated feebly.

The golden head inclined. "Bet you! Good old, well-seasoned brier for mine--well-caked and a little strong." Puff-puff. "Oh, d.a.m.n your patent sanitary pipes, I say!"

And as backward I collapsed upon the cushions, she threw her leg over the arm of her chair and shot two long cones of smoke from her dainty nostrils.

CHAPTER VI

ARCADIAN SIMPLICITY

A moment later I had another shock.

"I don't blame you for looking at me so hard," she said, rubbing her chin and looking, I thought, a little confused. "For did you ever see a face like mine?"

"I--I never did!" I said stammeringly, for, by Jove, the question was so unexpected; but I knew I said it earnestly and with conviction in every word.

She nodded. "Never got a chance to shave, you know--caught the train by such a margin--and my kit's in that other bag. Guess I'll have to impose on you in the morning for one of your razors."

I stared at her in horror.

"Shave? You don't shave?" I protested blankly.

"Myself, you mean? Have to; I haven't got a man to do it for me." She seemed to sigh. "Not old enough yet to have a man, Jack says."

And just here her attention seemed to center on my cellarette over in the corner.

"Gee, but it's warm to-night, isn't it?" she remarked absently.

And there was nothing to do but take the hint or leave it; and after all, she was a guest, you know!