"Ah, then, to-morrow evening."
"Unfortunately I have promised to deliver an address at the Bar Association Dinner."
"Very well, to-morrow morning."
"Still this young gentleman's business," remarks Mr. Southmead. "It is important and immediate."
"Oh, very well, then," returns Ferdie; "suppose you come down to our supper party now! I know what Mrs. Livingston wants to say to you, won't take over three minutes, and Miss Travenion won't occupy you five. Come down and join us? We are pretty well finished."
"But this young gentleman," remarks Whitehouse, smiling at Lawrence.
"Oh, bring Captain Lawrence down with you," and before Southmead can reply to this request, which is given in an off-hand, snappy kind of a way, Ferdie finds his hand grasped warmly in a set of bronzed maniples and Harry Storey Lawrence looking into his eyes with a face full of gratitude, and saying to him, "Certainly! I will run down with you with the greatest pleasure."
"But—" interjects Southmead.
"Oh, it will not inconvenience me in the slightest. It will be rather a pleasure," cries the Westerner.
And before he can urge any further objection to Mr. Ferdinand Chauncey's proposed move, the two younger men have left the room and are walking down-stairs, and the lawyer has nothing to do but to follow after them as rapidly as possible.