Bonbright understood what they were saying as if he had heard it; bit his lips and looked ruefully from the mothers to Hilda.  Her eyes had just swung from the same point to his face, and there was a dancing, quizzical light in them.  She understood, too.  Bonbright blushed at this realization.

“Isn’t it funny?” said Hilda, with a little chuckle.  “Mothers are always doing it, though.”

“What?” he asked, fatuously.

“Rubbish!” she said.  “Don’t pretend not to understand.  I knew you knew what was up the moment you came into the room and looked at me. ...  You—­dodged.”

“I’m sure I didn’t,” he replied, thrown from his equilibrium by her directness, her frankness, so like her father’s landslide directness.

“Yes, you dodged.  You had made up your mind never to be caught like this again, hadn’t you?  To make it your life work to keep out of my way?”

He dared to look at her directly, and was reassured.

“Something like that,” he responded, with miraculous frankness for a Foote.

“Just because they want us to we don’t have to do it,” she said, reassuringly.

“I suppose not.”

“Suppose?”

“I’m a Foote, you know, Bonbright Foote VII.  I do things I’m told to do.  The last six generations have planned it all out for me. ...  We do things according to inherited schedules. ...  Probably it sounds funny to you, but you haven’t any idea what pressure six generations can bring to bear.”  He was talking jerkily, under stress of emotion.  He had never opened his mouth on this subject to a human being before, had not believed it possible to be on such terms with anybody as to permit him to unbosom himself.  Yet here he was, baring his woes to a girl he had known but an hour.

“Of course,” she said, with her soft, throaty chuckle, “if you really feel you have to. ...  But I haven’t any six generations forcing me.  Or do you think yours will take me in hand?”

“It isn’t a joke to me,” he said.  “How would you like it if the unexpected—­chance—­had been carefully weeded out of your future?...  It makes things mighty flat and uninteresting.  I’m all wrapped up in family traditions and precedents so I can’t wriggle—­like an Indian baby. ...  Even this wouldn’t be so rotten if it were myself they were thinking about.  But they’re not.  I’m only an incident in the family, so far as this goes. ...  It’s Bonbright Foote VIII they’re fussing about. ...  It’s my duty to see to it there’s a Bonbright Foote VIII promptly.”

She didn’t sympathize with him, or call him “poor boy,” as so many less natural, less comprehending girls would have done.