He's what he is. I like him." She paused reflectively, continuing,
"Edith's 'interested' in that Lamhorn boy; he's good-looking and not
stupid, but I think he's--" She interrupted herself with a cheery
outcry: "Oh! I mustn't be calling him names! If he's trying to make
Edith like him, I ought to respect him as a colleague."

"I don't understand a thing you're talking about," Mrs. Vertrees
complained.

"All the better! Well, he's a bad lot, that Lamhorn boy; everybody's
always known that, but the Sheridans don't know the everybodies that
know. He sat between Edith and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan. SHE'S like
those people you wondered about at the theater, the last time we
went--dressed in ball-gowns; bound to show their clothes and jewels
SOMEwhere! She flatters the father, and so did I, for that matter--
but not that way. I treated him outrageously!"

"Mary!"

"That's what flattered him. After dinner he made the whole regiment
of us follow him all over the house, while he lectured like a guide
on the Palatine. He gave dimensions and costs, and the whole b'ilin'
of 'em listened as if they thought he intended to make them a present
of the house. What he was proudest of was the plumbing and that Bay
of Naples panorama in the hall. He made us look at all the plumbing
--bath-rooms and everywhere else--and then he made us look at the Bay
of Naples. He said it was a hundred and eleven feet long, but I think
it's more. And he led us all into the ready-made library to see a
poem Edith had taken a prize with at school. They'd had it printed
in gold letters and framed in mother-of-pearl. But the poem itself