Miss Fay was quiet for a minute, then she flashed her mischievous eyes on him.
"Certainly; but then, by your own admission, you have no right to decide that your love for mathematics is wise, and my love for Snowdrop foolish; it may be quite _au contraire_. Perhaps, after all, I may have 'chosen the better part.'"
"Fay, go in and dress for dinner," interrupted the General, trotting up; "your tongue would run on forever if nobody stopped it; you're no exception to your sex on that point. Is she?"
"Perhaps Miss Morton's frænum, like Sydie's, was cut too far in her infancy, and therefore she has been 'unbridled' ever since."
"In all things!" cried little Fay. "Nobody has put the curb on me yet, and nobody ever shall."
"Don't be too sure, Fay," cried Sydie. "Rarey does wonders with the wildest fillies. Somebody may bring you down on your knees yet."
"You'll have to see to that, Sydie," laughed the General. "Come, get along, child, to your toilette. I never have my soup cold and my curry overdone. To wait for his dinner is a stretch of good nature, and patience that ought not to be expected of any man."
The soup was not cold nor the curry overdone, and the dinner was pleasant enough, in the long dining-room, with the June sun streaming in through its bay-windows from out the brilliant-colored garden, and the walls echoing with the laughter of Sydie and his cousin, the young lady keeping true to her avowal of "not caring for Plato's presence." "Plato," however, listened quietly, peeling his peaches with tranquil amusement; for if the girl talked nonsense, it was clever nonsense, as rare, by the way, and quite as refreshing as true wit.
"My gloves are safe; you're too afraid of him, Fay," whispered Sydie, bending forwards to give her some hautboys.
"Am I?" cried Miss Fay, with a _moue_ of supreme contempt. Neither the whisper nor the _moue_ escaped Keane, as he talked with the governor on model drainage.
"Where's my hookah, Fay?" asked the General, after dessert. "Get it, will you, my pet?"
"Voilà!" cried Miss Fay, lifting the narghilé from the sideboard. Then taking some cigars off the mantelpiece, she put one in her own mouth, struck a fusee, and, handing the case to Keane, said, with a saucy smile in her soft bright eyes, though, to tell the truth, she was a little bit afraid of taking liberties with him: