"Let me ask you this, then," he begged quickly. "May I come to see you—at your house?"
"I am afraid not—yet," she answered. She was not ungracious, and continued with much interest: "But Mr. Ellis, I shall be so anxious to hear how it all goes. I am sorry I cannot help you with the men, but the principle is [she thought of Mather] choose the weak ones, not the strong. Here is my father. Father, this is Mr. Ellis."
Colonel Blanchard was affable. "How de do?" he said breezily. "Fine day for the match, Mr. Ellis."
"A very fine day," answered Ellis, pleased by the way in which the Colonel looked at him; Blanchard seemed interested, like his daughter. But Judith thought that the conversation had best end there.
"The carriage has come?" she asked.
"Yes," answered the Colonel. "Beth is in it, waiting for us. You know she goes out to dinner." He begged Ellis to excuse them, and so carried his daughter away.
Ellis looked after them; these two, at least, had treated him well. The Colonel had stared with almost bourgeois interest, as if impressible by wealth and power. Ellis mused over the possibility of such a thing.
"The weak," he said, repeating Judith's words. "The weak, not the strong."
Then Mrs. Harmon swooped down on him. "Here you are," she said petulantly. "Everybody's going. Let us go too."