With an older girl I should have let her flounder, and enjoyed it; but she was so young, and blushed so charmingly that I had to help her out. “Don’t keep me in suspense about your father,” I said, in my most interested of tones, as if I truly wished to know something of that blot on the ‘scutcheon. This was my second mistake, and a bad one. “We’ll leave Mr. Dabney Cortelyou out of the conversation, please,” she retorted, looking me in the eyes. Was there ever a meaner return for an act of pure charity than that? By the way, Kate’s eyes are not Cortelyou. I wondered from where she got them. When we are angry we contract ours, which is ugly. She opens hers, which is—I tried to make her do it again by saying, “You should set a better example, then.” No good: she had got back to her form, and was smiling sweetly. “They are furiously disappointed so far,” she remarked. “What an old curiosity shop the world is about other people’s affairs! It’s no concern of theirs that my grandfather and your”—I faltered, and went on—“that my grandfather had a row in his family. We don’t talk of it.” When I said “we” I meant the present company, but unfortunately Kate took it to mean our faction, and knowing of her father’s idle blabbing, she didn’t like it. “Your side has always dodged publicity,” she affirmed viciously, though smiling winsomely. Kate’s smile must be her strong card. “We have maintained a dignified silence,” I responded calmly; but I knew that a dagger thrust below that beautifully modelled throat would be less cruel. She tried to carry the wound bravely. “My father is quite justified in letting the truth be known,” she insisted. “Then why don’t you, too, give public house-warmings in the family-skeleton closet?” I inquired blandly. That was really a triumph, for Kate had never talked to outsiders about the wretched business. She couldn’t even respond with what she thought; for if she said that it was always the side in the wrong which talked, she was no better off, because we, like her, had kept silence, but her father had chattered it all over town. She looked down, and I gloated over her silence, till suddenly I thought I saw a suggestion of moisture on her down-turned lashes. What I said to myself was not flattering, and moreover is not fit for publication. What I said aloud I still glow over with pride when it recurs to memory. “Beware of the croquette!” I exclaimed hastily. “I’ve just burned my tongue horribly.” And I reached for the ice-water. She was as quick as I had been. The Cortelyou girls are quick, but she—well, I think the ancestress who gave her those eyes must have been a little quicker. “You spoke a moment too late,” she replied, looking up at me. “I had just done the same, and feel like weeping.” I wonder what the recording angel wrote against those two speeches? Then suddenly Kate began to laugh. “What is it?” I queried. “Taste your croquette,” she suggested. It was as cool as it should have been hot!