She could see that, in one way, this remark had done George good. It
helped warm him up. Leaning back on her hands, as she did, she could see
the red come up the back of his neck and spread into his ears. But it
didn't make him conversationally any more exciting. He merely grunted.
So she tried again.

"I suppose," she said dreamily, "that the myth about mermaids must
be founded in fact. Or is it sirens I'm thinking about? Perfectly
fascinating, irresistible women, who lure men farther and farther out,
in the hope of a kiss or something, until they get exhausted and drown.
I'll really be glad when Penny gets back alive."

"And I shall be very glad," said George, trying hard for a tone of
condescending indifference appropriate for use with one who has played
dolls with one's little sister, "I shall really be very glad when you
make up your mind what you are going to do with Penny. He's just about
a total loss down at the office as it is, and he's getting a worse idiot
from day to day. And the worst of it is, I imagine you know all the
while what you're going to do about it--whether you're going to take him
or not."

The girl flushed at that. He was being almost too outrageously rude,
even for George. But before she said anything to that effect, she
thought of something better.

"I shall never marry any man," she said very intensely, "whose heart
is not with the Cause. You know what Cause I mean, George--the Suffrage
Cause. When I see thoughtless girls handing over their whole lives to
men who..."

It sounded like the beginning of an oration.

"Good Lord!" her victim cried. "Isn't there anything else than that to
talk about--_ever_?"

"But just think how lucky you are, George," she said, "that at home they
all think exactly as you do!"

He jumped up. Evidently this reminder of the purring acquiescences of
Cousin Emelene and Mrs. Brewster-Smith laid no balm upon his harassed
spirit.

"You may leave my home alone, if you please."

He was frightfully annoyed, of course, or he wouldn't have said anything
as crude as that. In a last attempt to recover his scattered dignity,
he caught at his office manner. "By the way," he said, "you forgot
to remind me today to write a letter to that Eliot woman about Mrs.
Brewster-Smith's cottages."

With that he stalked away to dress. Genevieve and Penny, now shoreward
bound, hailed him. But it wasn't quite impossible to pretend he didn't
hear, and he did it.

The dinner