The least said about that night the better.
"But he is your guest, Harry," she urged at last, still determined to divert his thoughts from Willits and the loss of the dance--"OUR guest," she went on--"so is everybody else here to-night, and we must do what everybody wants us to, not be selfish about it.

Now, my darling--you couldn't be impolite to anybody--don't you know you couldn't?
Mrs.
Cheston calls you 'My Lord Chesterfield'-- I heard her say so to-night." "Yes, I know, Kate"-- he softened--"that's what father said about my being polite to him--but all the same I didn't want Willits invited, and it's only because father insisted that he's here.

Of course, I'm going to be just as polite to him as I can, but even father would feel differently about him if he had heard what he said to you a minute ago." "What did he say ?" She knew, but she loved to hear him defend her.

This, too, was a way out--in a minute he would be her old Harry again.
"I won't even repeat it," he answered doggedly.
"You mean about my being twenty-one?
That was rather ungallant, wasn't it ?" Again that long look from under her eyelids--he would have succumbed at once could he have seen it.
"No, the other part of it.

That's not the way to speak to a lady.
That's what I dislike him for.