"Ha! Ha! Ha!" shrieked Yorick. "Go to it, give 'em hell!"
"I don't wonder Aunt Caroline dreads him," said desire. "His
experience seems to have been lurid."
"Kiss her, you flat-foot, kiss her," shrieked the ribald Yorick.
"Sorry, old man," said Spence regretfully. "It's against the rules
to kiss one's secretary."
Again they both laughed. But was it fancy, or was this laugh a
trifle less spontaneous than the other? "Gracious!" said Desire,
suddenly in a hurry, "I've hardly left myself time to dress."
CHAPTER XXII
I may be said with fairness that the reception given by Miss Campion
for her nephew's bride left Bainbridge thoughtful. They had
expected the bride to be different, and they had found her to be
different from what they had expected. They could not place her;
and, in Bainbridge, everyone is placed.
"I understood," said Mrs. T. L. Lawson, whose word in intellectual
matters was final, "that young Mrs. Spence was wholly uneducated. A
school teacher who met her on the train told my dressmaker that she
had heard her admit the fact with her own lips. So, naturally, not
wishing to embarrass a newcomer, I confined my remarks to the
simplest matters. She did not say very much but I must confess--you
will scarcely believe it--I actually got the impression that she was
accommodating her conversation to me,"
"Oh, surely not!" from a shocked chorus.
"It is just a manner she affects," comforted Mrs.
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