"And, by the way, where is Cora?"
Tucker, annoyed at the desertion on the part of his ally, pressed his hand over his eyes and sighed audibly, but no one noticed him.
"I took a wrong turn in search of a short cut and lost the rest of them," said Crane. "But she'll be back directly. She's perfectly safe. She was with Eliot, our neighbor, and a fellow named Lefferts, whom she seemed to know."
"Lefferts!" cried Mrs. Falkener. "That man here! O Burton, how could you leave my daughter in such company? O Solon, you remember I told you about that man!"
Tucker nodded shortly. He wasn't going to take any interest in any one's grievances until his own had been disposed of.
"What's the matter with Lefferts?" said Crane. "He's staying with Eliot, and they asked us all over to lunch to-morrow. Shan't we go?"
"No, nowhere that that young man is," cried Mrs. Falkener, who seemed to be a good deal excited by the news. "He's an idler, a waster. Why, Burton," she ended in a magnificent climax, "he's a poet!"
"So Cora told me."
"He affects to be devoted to Cora," her mother went on bitterly, "and follows her about everywhere, without the slightest encouragement on her part, I can assure you, but I have known him to take a most insolent tone about her. The very first time I ever saw him, he was sitting beside me at a party, and I said, as Cora came across the room with that magnificent walk of hers, 'She moves like a full-rigged ship, doesn't she?' He answered: 'Or rather, more like a submarine; you never know where she'll pop up next. Yes, there's a sort of practical mystery about Cora very suitable to modern warfare.' He called her Cora behind her back, but not to her face, be sure. And very soon a poem of his appeared in one of the magazines—'To My Love, Comparing Her to a Submarine.' I thought it most insulting."
"And what did Cora think?" asked Crane.