‚ÄúThank you very much, Mr. ¬ÝTaylor,‚Äù he concluded; ‚Äúwe‚Äôll consider this matter carefully. You‚Äôll spend the night, of course.‚Äù
‚ÄúCan‚Äôt possibly‚ÅÝ‚Äîmust catch that next train back.‚Äù
“But we must talk further,” the Colonel insisted. “And then, there’s your sister.”
“By Jove! Forgot all about Mary.” John Taylor after a little desultory talk, followed his host upstairs.
The next afternoon John Taylor was sitting beside Helen Cresswell on the porch which overlooked the terrace, and was, on the whole, thinking less of cotton than he had for several years. To be sure, he was talking cotton; but he was doing it mechanically and from long habit, and was really thinking how charming a girl Helen Cresswell was. She fascinated him. For his sister Taylor had a feeling of superiority that was almost contempt. The idea of a woman trying to understand and argue about things men knew! He admired the dashing and handsome Miss Easterly, but she scared him and made him angrily awkward. This girl, on the other hand, just lounged and listened with an amused smile, or asked the most childlike questions. She required him to wait on her quite as a matter of course‚ÅÝ‚Äîto adjust her pillows, hand her the bonbons, and hunt for her lost fan. Mr. ¬ÝTaylor, who had not waited on anybody since his mother died, and not much before, found a quite inexplicable pleasure in these little domesticities. Several times he took out his watch and frowned; yet he managed to stay with her quite happily.
On her part Miss Cresswell was vastly amused. Her acquaintance with men was not wide, but it was thorough so far as her own class was concerned. They were all well-dressed and leisurely, fairly good looking, and they said the same words and did the same things in the same way. They paid her compliments which she did not believe, and they did not expect her to believe. They were charmingly deferential in the matter of