"Dear Mr. Berkley," she murmured gently.

He straightened himself, passed a hesitating hand across his
forehead, ruffling the short curly hair. Then his preoccupied gaze
wandered. Ailsa turned toward him at the same moment, and
instantly a flicker of malice transformed the nobility of his set
features:

"It seems," he said, "that you and I are irrevocably related in all
kinds of delightful ways, Mrs. Paige. Your sister-in-law very
charmingly admits it, graciously overlooks and pardons my many
delinquencies, and has asked me to come again. Will you ask me,
too?"

Ailsa merely looked at him.

Mrs. Craig said, laughing: "I knew you were all Ormond and entirely
Irish as soon as I came in the do'--befo' I became aware of your
racial fluency. I speak fo' my husband and myse'f when I say,
please remember that our do' is ve'y wide open to our own kin--and
that you are of them----"

"Oh, I'm all sorts of things beside--" He paused for a
second--"Cousin Celia," he added so lightly that the grace with
which he said it covered the impudence, and she laughed in
semi-critical approval and turned to Ailsa, whose smile in response
was chilly--chillier still when Berkley did what few men have done
convincingly since powdered hair and knee-breeches became
unfashionable--bent to salute Celia Craig's fingertips. Then he
turned to her and took his leave of her in a conventional manner