Van Tyle shrugged her shoulders and let it go at that. She
was leaning back in an easychair and across its arm her wrist
hung. Between the fingers, polished like old ivory to the tapering
pink nails, was a lighted cigarette.
"Why shouldn't I be--pleasant to him? I like him." Her color
deepened, but the eyes of the girl did not give way. There was in
them a little flare of defiance.
"Be pleasant to him if you like, and if it amuses you. But--"
Again Valencia stopped, but after a puff or two at her cigarette
she added presently: "Don't get too interested in him."
"I'm not likely to," Alice returned with a touch of scorn. "Can't
I like a man and admire him without wanting to marry him? I think
that's a hateful way to look at it."
"It's your interpretation, not mine," Mrs. Van Tyle answered with
perfect good humor. "Of course you couldn't want to marry him
under any circumstances. His station in life--his anarchistic
ideas--his reputation as a confirmed libertine--all of them make
the thought of such a thing impossible."
Miss Frome's mind seized on only one of the charges. "I don't
believe it. I don't believe a word of it. Anybody can throw
mud--and some of it is bound to stick.
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