"Yes, a good deal more so to me now than it was a month ago."
"Have mercy!" exclaimed Page with a groan.
Mildred and Jack were walking in front of them.
"Isn’t this like old times, Mildred?" asked the latter with a relish, clapping his hat on tighter as the sweep of the wind threatened it.
"Just about as unlike as we could imagine. Sorry to disagree with you, Jack."
"Don’t mention it. You don’t disagree with me, my child. I have enjoyed this first evening with you immensely."
"First evening is pretty good, isn’t it?" suggested the girl, and they both laughed. "You didn’t use to quarrel for my society," she added.
"I want you to understand that I wasn’t quarreling with you there, a few hours back, at the Marine Café."
"No, I was merely making the excusable protest of an old friend,—speaking in a brotherly way, you know."
"Oh, it won’t do, Jack." He knew exactly how she was smiling in the darkness. "It is my unalterable rule never to be a sister to any of them. I can’t break over it for you."
"Them!" ejaculated her companion. "I don’t thank you to class me with Tom, Dick, and Harry, and the rest of these late arrivals. Remember, I was the first-comer into your friendship."
"Yes; you probably can’t conceive of what a healing thought it is to me now that I have snubbed you many a time, young lady. I had to. Your attentions were so persistent in those days. Yes, mademoiselle, I had to hold you off, or I should never have had any peace of my life. I remember it well. Perhaps you don’t."
"Oh yes, I do, perfectly," sighed Mildred. "Wasn’t the Flirt the stanchest little dear that ever spread a sail; and to think that is all over! I don’t feel nearly so much elation over going with Mr. Eames on that yacht party to-morrow as I used to in nagging you into consent that I should sail the Flirt."
"Yes; and he is very nice. I should like you to meet him. If I knew him a little better I would have procured you an invitation. You should remember that virtue is its own reward. If you had not preferred smoking in the hammock to coming into the parlor and making yourself agreeable the other evening when Helen Eames and her mother were calling, they would surely have asked you to join the party. ’If you would be loved, be lovely.’ That is what my mother used to tell me." Mildred laughed to herself.