w 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 coarse, 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 ass, 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