Page:The house without a key, by Earl Derr Biggins (1925).djvu/16

 “Well,” said his guest, “I’m about to exhibit what my brother used to call true Harvard indifference.”

“What do you mean?” asked Winterslip.

“I don’t mind if I do,” twinkled Miss Minerva, lifting a cocktail glass.

Dan Winterslip beamed upon her. “You’re a good sport, Minerva,” he remarked, as he escorted her across the hall.

“When in Rome,” she answered, “I make it a point not to do as the Bostonians do. I fear it would prove a rather thorny path to popularity.”

“Precisely.”

“Besides, I shall be back in Boston soon. Tramping about to art exhibits and Lowell Lectures, and gradually congealing into senility.”

But she was not in Boston now, she reflected, as she sat down at the gleaming table in the dining-room. Before her, properly iced, was a generous slice of papaia, golden yellow and inviting. Somewhere beyond the foliage outside the screens, the ocean murmured restlessly. The dinner would be perfect, she knew, the Island beef dry and stringy, perhaps, but the fruits and the salad more than atoning.

“Do you expect Barbara soon?” she inquired presently.

Dan Winterslip’s face lighted like the beach at sunrise. “Yes, Barbara has graduated. She’ll be along any day now. Nice if she and your perfect nephew should hit on the same boat.”

“Nice for John Quincy, at any rate,” Miss Minerva replied. “We thought Barbara a lively charming girl when she visited us in the East.”

“She’s all of that,” he agreed proudly. His daughter