Outside the dining-room door the handsomest one got near enough to speak to Sir S. "How do you do, Mr. Somerled?" he said. "Don't you remember me? I'm Jack Morrison, Marguerite's cousin. I met you twice at Newport while you were painting her portrait."
"Marguerite Morrison. 'M. M.,' the grateful model who gave him the refrigerator basket!" thought I. And Sir S. proceeded to give the cousin a refrigerator glance; but it didn't discourage him. He went on as cordially as ever. "My three chums want to be presented: Dick Farquhar, Charlie Grant, Sam Menzies. We're all Harvard men, seeing Europe in general and Scotland in particular, in our vacation. We've every one of us got Scottish blood in our veins, so we sort of feel we've earned the right to make your acquaintance. And we've been wondering if you'd introduce us to your friends, if you don't think it's cheek of us to ask!"
Sir S. looked as if he did think it great "cheek"; but if he hesitated, Mrs. West quickly decided for him. She gave the nice American boy one of her sweet, soft smiles, and said, "Of course Mr. Somerled will introduce you all to us; or you may consider yourselves introduced, and save him the trouble. My name is Aline West, and this is my brother, Basil Norman."
She went through this little ceremony in a charming way, yet as if she expected the young men to be delighted; and I too thought they would burst into exclamations of joy at meeting celebrities. But not a word did any of the four say about the books, or their great luck in meeting the authors. Perhaps they were too shy, though they didn't seem shy in other ways. They just mumbled in a kind of chorus. "Very pleased to know you both" (which Mr. Norman told me afterward is an American formula, on being introduced); and when they'd bowed to the brother and sister and Mrs. James (though she hadn't been mentioned) all four grouped round me. This was natural, I suppose, because we were more or less of an age.
"Is this your daughter, Mrs. West?" asked Jack Morrison. "And may we children talk to her?"
For a minute that pretty, sweet-faced woman looked exactly like a cat. She did, really. It almost gave me a shock! I thought, "She must have _been_ a cat in another state of existence, and hasn't quite got over it." Not that cats aren't nice in their way; but when ladies in fascinating frocks, with hair beautifully dressed, suddenly develop a striking family likeness to Persian pussies robbed of milk, it does have a quaint effect on the nerves.