Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III SOME MUTUAL DIPLOMACY Carol got down in the morning a little after half-past eight, the Darlingtons' breakfast hour, and found the others already at table. Her dark woollen gown gave her a rather subdued appearance, yet she showed to better advantage, after her dissipation, than either Ruth or her brother, both of whom looked rather washed out. " Papa, I congratulate you on your effort last night," said Carol, stopping behind her father's chair. " I wanted to do it last night, only I missed you in the hubbub." Ruth snickered, but the others of course failed to see the point. " You liked it, did you ? " asked her father, laying down his paper. " Your mother thought it was a little egotistical." " Why, mamma !" exclaimed Carol, laughing. " Just as though papa could be." Mr. Darlington smiled in his shrewd, non-committal way, like a man used to this kind of thing, and seemed to enjoy it. Mrs. Darlington, a robust, healthy-looking woman, who had by no means relinquished all her youthful charms, said quietly: " I said, Charles, that some people might think it egotistical. But I did not. I suppose that, no matter what you might have said, somebody would misconstrue it." "Who cares, mamma?" said Ruth, in a voice flavored with buckwheat cakes and maple syrup. " You thought I was a little cynical, though, Winny," returned DaBIrlgtOri;" his wife, " only a little insincere — a little too 'adulatory." "If papa was adulatory, what was Carol?" asked Ruth, mischievously. " That 's what, Ruth," said her father, with a favoring smile at his champion. "You must all remember that papa had stolen my thunder," laughed Carol. " That is, not foreseeing any need of it myself, I had given it to him." " I don't know," answered Darlington, dissentingly. " I d... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.