boyishness. "I've never lost sight of that for a minute.
It's been altogether easier for her, though," he threw off
presently.

"On the whole, I suppose it has. Well----" she summed up
with a laugh, "aren't you all the better pleased to be told
you've behaved as well as she?"

"Oh, you know, I've not done it for you," he tossed back at
her, without the least note of hostility in the affected
lightness of his tone.

"Haven't you, though, perhaps--the least bit? Because, after
all, you knew I understood?"

"You've been awfully kind about pretending to."

She laughed. "You don't believe me? You must remember I had
your grandmother to consider."

"Yes: and my father--and Effie, I suppose--and the outraged
shades of Givre!" He paused, as if to lay more stress on the
boyish sneer: "Do you likewise include the late Monsieur de
Chantelle?"

His step-mother did not appear to resent the thrust. She
went on, in the same tone of affectionate persuasion: "Yes:
I must have seemed to you too subject to Givre. Perhaps I
have been. But you know that was not my real object in
asking you to wait, to say nothing to your grandmother