"You say she didn't like Mr. Gilbert?"
"They hated each other. But—he was so peculiar—of course that wasn't strange. Many people detested him. Bron never did. He always forgave him everything because he said he was insane. Bron told you my experience—the one that made me break with Worth?"
She looked at me, a level look; no shifting of color, no flutter of eyelid or throat. We were at the clubhouse steps.
"Here comes the boy himself," I warned as Worth and Barbara, their arms full of ferns, rounded the turn from the little dip at the side of the grounds where the stream went through. We stood and waited for them.
"You two," Ina spoke quickly to them. "Mr. Boyne's just promised to come over to dinner to-morrow night." Her glance asked me to accept the fib and the invitation. "I want both of you."
"I'm going to be at your house anyhow, Ina," Barbara said, "working with Skeet painting those big banners they've tacked up out in your court. You'll have to feed us; but we'll be pretty messy. I don't know about a dinner party."
"It isn't," Ina protested, smiling. "It's just what you said—feeding you. Nobody there besides yourself and Skeet but Mr. Boyne and Worth—if he'll come."
"I have to go up to San Francisco to-morrow," said Worth.
"But you'll be back by dinner time?" Ina added quickly.
"If I make it at all."