"But Mr. Bryany told me Friday. And the date was clear enough on the copy of the option he gave me."
"A mistake of copying," beamed Mr. Marrier. "However, it's all right."
"Well," observed Edward Henry with heartiness, "I don't mind telling you that for sheer calm coolness you take the cake. However, as Mr. Marrier so ably says, it's all right. Now I understand if I go into this affair I can count on you absolutely, and also on Mr. Trent's services." He tried to talk as if he had been diplomatizing with actresses and poets all his life.
"A—absolutely!" said Rose.
And Mr. Carlo Trent nodded.
"You Iscariots!" Edward Henry addressed them, in the silence of the brain, behind his smile. "You Iscariots!"
The photographer arrived with certain cases, and at once Rose Euclid [114] and Carlo Trent began instinctively to pose.
"To think," Edward Henry pleasantly reflected, "that they are hugging themselves because Sir John Pilgrim's secretary happened to telephone just while I was out of the room!"