“Broken what?”
“Her engagement to John Mayrant. You mean to say that you didn’t--?”
“See here, old man. Seriously. The fire-eater?”
I was so very much bewildered that I merely stared at Beverly Rodgers.
Of course, I might have known that Miss Rieppe would not feel the need
of announcing to her rich Northern friends an engagement which she had
fallen into the habit of postponing.
But Beverly had a better right to be taken aback. “I suppose you must
have some reason for your remark,” he said.
“You don’t mean that you’re engaged to her?” I shot out.
“Me? With my poor little fifteen thousand a year? Consider, dear boy!
Oh, no, we’re merely playing at it, she and I. She’s a good player. But
Charley--”
“He is?” I shouted.
“I don’t know, old man, and I don’t think he knows--yet.”
“Beverly,” said I, “let me tell you.” And I told him.
After he had got himself adjusted to the novelty of it he began to take
it with a series of thoughtful chuckles.
Into these I dropped with: “Where’s her father, anyhow?” I began to
feel, fantastically, that she mightn’t have a father.
“He stopped in Savannah,” Beverly answered. “He’s coming over by the
train. Kitty--Charley’s sister, Mrs. Bleecker--did the chaperoning for
us.
“Very expertly, I should guess,” I said.
“Perfectly; invisibly,” said Beverly. And he returned to his thoughts
and his chuckles.
“After all, it’s simple,” he presently remarked.
“Doesn’t that depend on what she’s here for?”
“Oh, to break it.”
“Why come for that?”
He took another turn among his cogitations. I took a number of turns
among my own, but it was merely walking round and round in a circle.
“When will she announce it, then?” he demanded.
“Ah!” I murmured. “You said she was a good player.”
“But a fire-eater!” he resumed. “For her. Oh, hang it! She’ll let him
go!”
“Then why hasn’t she?”
He hesitated. “Well, of course her game could be spoiled by--”
His speech died away into more cogitation, and I had to ask him what he
meant.
“By love getting into it somewhere.”
We walked on through Worship Street, which we had reached some while
since, and the chief features of which I mechanically pointed out to
him.
“Jolly old church, that,” said Beverly, as we reached my favorite corner
and brick wall. “Well, I’ll not announce it!” he murmured gallantly.
“My dear man,” I said, “Kings Port will do all the announcing for you
to-morrow.”