“You’ve given up?” she asked in quick interest.
“Why? Do you want me to?”
“No.”
Her monosyllable told little. Her eyes, which he alone could see, told more. Clive was satisfied.
“I have not given up,” he said simply, “and I am not going to.”
“Oh, but, Clive,” put in his aunt, finding her voice at last after the shock of seeing Standish walk thus boldly into the lion’s den. “You’d really better give up the whole silly business. I’m sure Mr. Conover would be so pleased.”
“I don’t doubt it,” replied Standish, smiling grimly at Anice over the old lady’s bobbing head, “but I’m afraid it is a pleasure that’s at least deferred. The kind that Solomon tells us ‘maketh the heart sick.’ I’m still in the race. Very much in it.”
“But then, why—why have you come here, Clive?” urged Letty nervously. “Mr. Conover and you are such bad friends. I’m sure there’ll be an awful scene, just as there was that time four years ago. And I do so hate scenes. After this evening’s——”
“I’m afraid there may be a ‘scene,’ as you call it,” admitted Clive, “but it won’t be at all on the order of the one four years ago. And I hope it won’t be in your presence either, Aunt.”
Again his eyes met Anice Lanier’s. She nodded ever so slightly, and he knew that when the time should come he could trust her to remove the timid woman from the danger zone.