The tall, thin old gentleman was protesting. "My dear----"
"Oh, you didn't know, Daddy darling," she said. "I got back before I was
discovered, and let myself in by the door I had unlocked. But I couldn't
keep it from the girls--it was such fun to make them--shiver."
"And what became of Romeo?" Porter asked.
"He found another Juliet--a lovely little blonde and they are living
happy ever after."
Leila's eyes were round. "But I don't see," she began.
"Of course you don't, duckie. To me, the whole thing was an adventure
along the road--to you, it would have been a heart-break."
Her words came clearly to Roger. That, then, was what love meant to some
women--an adventure along the road. One man served for pleasuring, until
at some curve in the highway she met another.
Lilah was challenging her audience. "And now you see why I was dreadful
Lilah. I fit the name they had for me, don't I?"
Her question was put at Porter, and he answered it. "It is women who set
the pace for us," he said; "if they adventure, we venture. If they lead,
we follow."
General Dick broke in. With his halo of white hair and his pink face, he
looked like an indignant cherub. "The way you young people treat serious
subjects is appalling;" then he felt his little daughter's hand upon his
arm.
"Lilah is always saying things that she doesn't mean, Dad. Please don't
take her seriously."
"Nobody takes me seriously," said Lilah, "and that's why nobody knows me
as I really am."
"I know you," said her father, "and you're like a little mare that I used
to drive out on the ranch. As long as I'd let her have her head, she was
lovely. But let me try to curb her, and she'd kick over the traces."
They all laughed at that; then their tea came, and a great plate of
toast, and the conversation grew intermittent and less interesting.
Yet the man at the other table had his attention again arrested when
Lilah said to Porter, as she drew on her gloves: "We are invited to Mary Ballard's for Thanksgiving, and you're to be
there."
"Yes--mother and father are going South, so I can escape the family
feast."
"Mary Ballard is--charming----" It was said tentatively, with an upward
sweep of her lashes.
But Porter did not answer; and as he stood behind her chair, there was a
deeper flush on his florid cheeks. Mary's name he held in his heart. It
was rarely on his lips.