"Well, if you will listen to me and smoke your cigar in silence," says Southmead, for they have arrived at that stage of the meal. "Erma Lucille Travenion——"
"Erma—Lucille—Travenion!" mutters the young man, turning the words over very tenderly as if they were sweet morsels on his tongue. "Erma—Lucille—Travenion,—what a beautiful name."
"Hang it, don't interrupt me and don't look romantic," laughs the lawyer.
But here a soft-treading waiter knocks upon the door and says: "Mr. Ferdinand Rives Chauncey would like to see you half a minute, Mr. Southmead."
And with the words, the young gentleman announced, a dapper boy of about nineteen, faultlessly clad in the evening dress of that period, enters hastily and says: "My dear Mr. Southmead, Mrs. Livingston has commissioned me to ask you if you won't come down and join her for a few moments. Oh, I beg pardon—" He pauses and gives a look expectant of introduction towards Harry Lawrence. The lawyer, following his glance, presents the two young men, and after acknowledging it, Chauncey proceeds glibly, "Awful sorry to have interrupted you."
"Won't you sit down and have a glass of wine and a cigar?" says Southmead hospitably.
"Yes, just one glass and one cigar—a baby cigar—they remind me of cigarettes. I have not more than a moment to deliver my message. You see, Mrs. Ogden Livingston has just come back from Newport, and to-night gave a little theatre party: Daly's 'Divorce,' Clara Morris, Fanny Davenport, Louis James and James Lewis, etc. Have you seen Lewis's Templeton Jitt? It is immense. That muff, Oliver, actually giggled," babbles this youth, commonly called by his intimates Ferdie.
"So, Mr. Oliver Livingston laughed? It must have been very funny," remarks Whitehouse affably.
"Didn't he, when Jitt, the lawyer, got his ears boxed instead of the husband he was suing for divorce. You want to see that play, Southmead; it might give you points in your next application for alimony."
"I am not a divorce lawyer," cries the attorney rather savagely.