"
"I didn't but once," responded the other, apologetically. "Still, if
you're going to get along in this world, you've got to be of it. Besides,
I thought"--_argumentum ad hominem_--"that she was entitled to show that
dress; hers was described, too."
"Um!" said her father, soberly, with a sidelong glance towards his
pigeon-holes. "But no picture."
"Well, let that pass," responded Bingham, with a slight touch of pique.
"Is this the Miss Marshall who read lately at the Fortnightly?"
"Yes."
"Is it the same one who is announced to lecture at Hull House on the
Russian novelists?"
"See here, Bingham!" The old man wheeled about sharply in his chair, and
fastened a keen scrutiny upon the other's face. Bingham had never talked
to him like this before; he had never seemed so light-minded, so slanted
towards the jocular. "See here, Bingham, what are you driving at?"
Bingham fitted himself solidly into the curved back of the chair, and
laid his hands out ponderously upon its arms. He had something to say,
and he wondered how best he might say it. "Marshall is twenty years older
than I am," he thought, as his eye traversed the shelves of nutmegs and
orris-root and lit upon the discolored awnings over the way, "and I must
be careful. I'm young to him, of course; but I can't ask the indulgence
due to a boy. How shall I work it?"
He felt that he had earned the right to speak. He had done well by
Marshall, and he knew that Marshall was pleased.
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