"You're just back, aren't you?"
"And off again at five twenty-two. And I've got two hours' unpacking and
repacking to do before then."
"You _are_ a traveler these days! What's this," inquired Charles,
innocently--"another business trip?"
"House-party at the Kingsleys', down at Hatton. Tell your boy to skip
along there, Charlie. I'm in a rush."
Amiably, Charles spoke into the mouthpiece: "Skip along there, Eustace.
Mr. Manford's in a rush." And resuming he said, with an air of honest
envy: "At the Kingsleys'! By George, that sounds pretty good! Congenial
crowd, winter sports, dancing every night--you're in luck! Who's going
along?"
Donald named the guests. It did not escape the observant Charles that he
named Miss Carson last, after a perceptible pause and in a manner
clumsily careless. Nothing escaped Charles, not Donald's sober face,
certainly not the fact that he had just come from the Wings'. Now, with
a thrill of satisfaction, he understood that Mary had been talking to
the young light-o'-love at last, giving him to understand plainly where
his duty lay. And this look of Donald's was precisely the right look,
too: just the intensely self-important, nervous, faintly complacent,
highly worried look of a man who has suddenly learned that he is going
to be married directly.
He gave the strong Mary another large credit-mark, and continued: "Three
days with that crowd!--how I'd like to get in! As for poor old
Talbott--ha, ha!--he'll foam at the mouth when I tell him about this."
"What's he got to do with it?"
"Why, I thought you'd heard! Miss Carson knocked him flat with one
look--that lunch of mine! He can't see anybody else since, poor chap.
But he admits he doesn't make any time at all."
"She's not the kind that takes to any whippersnapper that comes along."
His odious smugness delighted Charles. So did his fidgeting about, his
hasty glances at his watch, his long solemn stares at himself in the
little mirror.
"Poor old Talbott swears she must be interested in somebody else,"
laughed Charles. "But he confessed he couldn't think of a man he knew
who'd be at all likely to interest a girl like that--I either." And
then, not to overdo it, he said interestedly: "But, Donald, what about
Blake & Steinert?"
"Oh, I turned 'em down," said the coming fiancé, and briefly expanded.
Of the fine old firm, he said: "They were associated with me on Hog Bay
Breakwater." Old Blake was a prince; Steinert a crackerjack. They had
raised their offer, so eager were they to get him, and insisted on
leaving it open for him. He had seen all the shows, lunched at five
clubs, "closed up several important deals," etc., etc.