us, also?” He bowed toward the niece with calculated formality. The niece was not enthusiastic.
“Now, darling,” Mrs. Maurier turned to her niece with rapture. “Here is an example of the chivalry of our southern men. Can you imagine a man in Chicago saying that?”
“Not hardly,” the niece agreed. Her aunt rushed on:
“That is why I have been so anxious for Patricia to visit me, so she can meet men who are—who are— My niece is named for me, you see, Mr. Talliaferro. Isn't that nice?” She pressed Mr. Talliaferro with recurrent happy astonishment.
Mr. Talliaferro bowed again, came within an ace of dropping the bottle, darted the hand which held his hat and stick behind him to steady it. “Charming, charming,” he agreed, perspiring under his hair.
“But, really, I am surprised to find you here at this hour. And I suppose you are as surprised to find us here, aren't you? But I have just found the most won-derful thing! Do look at it, Mr. Talliaferro: I do so want your opinion.” She extended to him a dull lead plaque from which in dim bas-relief of faded red and blue simpered a Madonna with an expression of infantile astonishment identical with that of Mrs. Maurier, and a Child somehow smug and complacent looking as an old man. Mr. Talliaferro, feeling the poised precariousness of the bottle, dared not release his hand. He bent over the extended object. “Do take it, so you can examine it under the light,” its owner insisted. Mr. Talliaferro perspired again mildly. The niece spoke suddenly:
“I'll hold your package.”
She moved with young swiftness and before he could demur she had taken the bottle from his hand. “Ow,” she exclaimed, almost dropping it herself, and her aunt gushed:
“Oh, you have discovered something also, haven't you?
