The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary | Page 9

instant how rapidly the mind may work since his friend had compassed
his encyclopedia of sentiment and probability between the two halves
of a formal introduction.
"Oh, I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Denham," she said, putting out her
hand--and he took and held it just long enough to realize that he really
was holding it, before she took it away to keep for her own again. "I've
often heard of you, and often wished I might know you."
"I'm awfully glad to hear you say that," he said, "and if I should have
the royal luck to be next to you at dinner, it doesn't seem to me that I
shall have the strength to keep from telling you why."
She clapped her hands at this, just as a very little girl might have done.

"If that is so, I hope that they will put you next to me at dinner," she
said gayly; "but if they don't, you'll tell me some other time, won't you?
I'm always so interested in what people have to tell me about myself."
Burnett began to laugh.
"Jack," he said, "I see that we'd better have a clear and above-board
understanding right in the beginning and so I'll just tell you that this
sister of mine, who appears so guileless, is the very worst flirt ever. She
looks honest, but she can't tell the truth to save her neck. She means
well, but she drives folks to suicide just for fun. She'd do anything for
anybody in general, but when it's a case of you individually she won't
do a thing to you, and you must heed my words and be forewarned and
forearmed from now on. Mustn't he, Betty?"
At this the sister laughed, nodding quite as gayly as if it were a
laughing matter, instead of the opening move in a possibly serious--
tremendously serious--game of life.
"It's awful to have to subscribe to," she said, with dancing eyes; "but
I'm afraid it's true. I'm really quite a reprobate, and I admit it frankly.
And everyone is so good to me that I never get a chance to reform. And
so--and so--"
"But then, I suppose I ought to warn her about you, too," said Burnett,
turning suddenly toward his friend. "It isn't fair to show her up and not
show you up, you know. And really, Betty, he's almost as bad as you
are yourself. I may tell you in confidence--in strict confidence (for it's
only been in a few newspapers)--that he hasn't got his
breach-of-promise suit all compromised yet. Ask him to deny it, if he
can!"
The sister looked suddenly startled and curious and Jack felt himself to
be blushing desperately.
"I don't look as if he was lying, do I?" he asked smiling; "be honest
now, for you can see that Burnett and I both are."

"No, you don't," she said. "You look as if it was a very true bill."
"It is," he said; "and it's going to be an awfully big one, too, I'm afraid."
"I wouldn't have thought you were such a bad man," said the sister ever
so sweetly; "but I like bad men. They interest me. They--"
"There!--I see your finish," said Burnett. "That's one of her favorite
opening plays. It's all up with you, Jack, and your aunt will have to to
go down for another damage suit when you begin to perceive that you
have had enough of our family. But you'll have to get out now, Betty,
and let him get dressed for dinner. You needn't cry about it either for
he's even more attractive in his glad rags than he is in his railway
dust--my word of honor on it."
"I look nice myself when I'm dinner-dressed," said the sister, "so I
sympathize with him and I'll go with pleasure. Good-bye."
She sort of backed toward the door and Jack sprang to open it for her.
"You can kiss her hand, if you like," Burnett said kindly. "They do in
Germany, you know. I don't mind and mamma needn't know."
"May I?" Jack asked her; and then he caught her eye over her brother's
bent head and added, so quickly that there was hardly any break at all
between the words: "Some other time?"
"Some other time," she said, with a world of meaning in the promise;
and then she flashed one wonderful look straight into his eyes and was
gone.
"Isn't she great?" Burnett asked, unlocking his suit-case in the most
provokingly every-day style, as if this day was an every-day sort of day
and not the beginning and end of all things. "Oh, I tell you, I'm almost
dotty over that sister myself."
"Do you suppose that I could manage to have her for dinner?" Jack
asked,