"I must see your father--I can show him some letters--"
"Ted, you won't do anything so insanely silly."
"But what can I do?"
"If I were you," she remarked demurely, "I'd try staying on my very best
behaviour." Her eyes flashed mischief as she said this.
"Does every inquisitive idiot in Deep Harbor know me by sight?"
"Be careful, Ted, how you refer to our upper circles," she laughed. "Of
course they know you, silly boy. You buy a factory from one of our
prominent business men, come all the way from London, speak to no one,
live a mysterious life all by yourself, with a strange piratey-looking
cutthroat--"
"Prospero!" I exclaimed.
"Prospero! Delicious name!" she echoed. "Well, you do all these things
and then imagine you are invisible. Could any one but a man be so
stupid?"
"There does seem to be something in what you say," I gurgled humbly. Her
laugh this time was loud and joyous enough to add to Myrtle Boulevard's
suspicions.
"Any one with any common sense would have presented his letters of
introduction at the beginning."
"How do you know I have any?"
"Oh, dad had the bank look up all your connections, of course, when you
borrowed money for the pay roll. He's a director. He told me all about
it."
"This is a chatty little village"--I said with a very feeble effort at
withering sarcasm.
"So you see, Ted, dad and I know you are all right,--only mother and the
rest rather stick at your not presenting yourself properly. It will take
a lot of grandfather to get around that!"--and she went off again into
peals of laughter.
"Helen, you don't believe--"
She cut me off. "Ted. I make friends with whom I please, and no
explanations are necessary, unless I ask for them."
"But there wasn't--"
"That will do, Teddy. You must turn back now," and she went on, leaving
me with one last protest hanging in mid-air. I looked at my watch, as
one always does in the street to cover embarrassment. It was quarter to
six! By dashing up a side street and running after an electric car I
arrived at the office exactly with the whistle.