Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/401

 know better than to tell in getting out of mischief he'd been up to. And the mischief Papa gets into is just as childlike. He's worked all his life like a galley-slave, and of course he has to be up to a little mischief now and then, just for a rest; but it's the most infantile mischief in the world. He wouldn't know how not to be innocent, and he absolutely adores Mamma. And Mamma" She stopped again, and shook her head ruefully. "Well, Mamma"

"Yes?"

"Well, Mamma is a little strict with him," Olivia admitted. "She didn't know what on earth this 'Koos Koos' meant, of course, in his note; and it's upset her terribly. She's nervous anyhow in this rather wild place, and Le Seyeux warned us not to go about much without him, especially after dark. So she's nervous about Papa's wandering around on that account; but a thing she just couldn't possibly understand would be his going out to dine with another woman, especially a woman she doesn't know, and above all a beautiful exotic person like this one. She couldn't understand that he'd be just flattered and interested by Madame Momoro's seeming a little flirtatious with him"

"A little?" Ogle interrupted.