“Your mother is pleased here?”

The girl looked up quickly.  “I forgot to tell you how much she thanked you for the invitation to your cousin’s.  She was delighted there.”

“And you were not?”

“I didn’t say so; you were very kind.”

“Oh, kind; I didn’t mean to be kind.  I was purely selfish in wanting you to go.  Cannot you believe, Miss Benson, that I had some pride in having my friends see you and know you?”

“Well, I will be as frank as you are, Mr. King.  I don’t like being shown off.  There, don’t look displeased.  I didn’t mean anything disagreeable.”

“But I hoped you understood my motives better by this time.”

“I did not think about motives, but the fact is” (another jab of the parasol), “I was made desperately uncomfortable, and always shall be under such circumstances, and, my friend—­I should like to believe you are my friend—­you may as well expect I always will be.”

“I cannot do that.  You under—­”

“I just see things as they are,” Irene went on, hastily.  “You think I am different here.  Well, I don’t mind saying that when I made your acquaintance I thought you different from any man I had met.”  But now it was out, she did mind saying it; and stopped, confused, as if she had confessed something.  But she continued, almost immediately:  “I mean I liked your manner to women; you didn’t appear to flatter, and you didn’t talk complimentary nonsense.”

“And now I do?”

“No.  Not that.  But everything is somehow changed here.  Don’t let’s talk of it.  There’s the carriage.”

Irene arose, a little flushed, and walked towards the point.  Mr. King, picking his way along behind her over the rocks, said, with an attempt at lightening the situation, “Well, Miss Benson, I’m going to be just as different as ever a man was.”

V

NARRAGANSETT PIER AND NEWPORT AGAIN; MARTHA’S VINEYARD AND PLYMOUTH

We have heard it said that one of the charms, of Narragansett Pier is that you can see Newport from it.  The summer dwellers at the Pier talk a good deal about liking it better than Newport; it is less artificial and more restful.  The Newporters never say anything about the Pier.  The Pier people say that it is not fair to judge it when you come direct from Newport, but the longer you stay there the better you like it; and if any too frank person admits that he would not stay in Narragansett a day if he could afford to live in Newport, he is suspected of aristocratic proclivities.