And so Aunt Georgy was led home by the mayor and her small niece without getting a word with the speaker. But she was a determined woman; and though Lisburn was a busy man, between lecturing at his college in the daytime and conferences with mentally maladjusted in Jefferson in the evening and giving a good many spare hours to Norma, a free afternoon was finally found and Norma brought him to tea. Little Evie, who happened to be spending a week or two with her aunt, immediately announced her intention of being out. "I don't like that man," she said. Aunt Georgy, always eager for information, inquired why she didn't. Evie thought a long time, and then said, "Because he invades one's private life." "Does Norma feel that way?" Little Evie laughed. "Norma hasn't got a private life," she answered. At five o'clock, when Aunt Georgy was settled on her blue sofa, with her cane beside her and her tea set in front, Evie stole quietly out of the back door into the garden as Norma and the seer entered at the front. "Well, here he is, Aunt Georgy," Norma shouted from the threshold, as if she had done a good deal for an elderly relation. He came in and shook hands, unruffled by Norma's introduction. "Where's Evie?" Norma went on in a tone rather like a sheriff's officer. "She was so sorry--she had an engagement," said Aunt Georgy, quite as if it were true. Norma gave a short shout. "Oh, Ken knows she doesn't like him," she said; "and as a matter of fact, he isn't very keen about her." Lisburn looked at Miss Hadley, not exactly embarrassed, but as if to say that when you told a thing to Norma you told it to the whole world. Aunt Georgy was interested in his not denying the accusation. She had never before happened to meet a man who actually did not like Evie. "You don't admire my little niece?" she said, in her tone of seeking information merely. "No," shouted Norma from the hearthrug. "He thinks she's too colorless, too much tied up with inhibitions to be interesting." "Of course, I see your niece's great charm," he answered; "but, as I said the other night, we all have our own type--the type that particularly appeals--and I am attracted to a more active, aggressive type." "That's why he likes me," said Norma, with her mouth not empty of chocolate cake--"because I lead a great, free, ramping life. Isn't that true, Ken?" "I'm sure it's true you lead a great, free, ramping life, Norma," said her aunt. "Yes, and that's why I'm so healthy," answered Norma, and she danced a little on her flat-heeled shoes. They were large shoes, but then, she was a large woman. Aunt Georgy was surprised to find herself a partisan. It annoyed her to hear her favorite niece dismissed as attractive to other men but not to this reader of human hearts. She said almost pettishly, "Evie is healthy, too--one of the healthiest people I ever knew." "I bet she has dreams," said Norma. "I doubt it."