“Just a minute, yuh folks,” suggested the perturbed man of the ring. “This actin’ as though yuh was married for ten years ain’t goin’ to bury any tomahawks and end the war-dance! There’s been too much pullin’ at cross——”
But it was Gunboat’s turn to be interrupted. That final interruption came in the form of the unceremonious flinging back of the studio-door, disclosing the bristling but the immaculate figure of Teddie’s Uncle Chandler.
“What’s wrong here, Teddie?” demanded that perplexed-eyed old gentleman, striding into the room with all the dignity his sciatica would permit.
“She wants to go home,” said Gerry. And as he said those five words in a singularly dull tone his hands went down to his sides. The movement, in some way, was oddly suggestive of flying colors forlornly lowered.
“Well, that impresses me as an eminently sane and respectable place to want to go to,” remarked the old Major as he blinked from one to the other of the odd trio confronting him. But his eye, for some reason, was on Gerald Rhindelander West when he spoke next, though his question, obviously, was addressed to Teddie. “And just when do you want to go, my dear?”
“As soon as you can get me away from here,” was Teddie’s prompt but low-noted reply.
Ceremoniously the old Major held out his crooked right arm and dolorously the girl in the blue-fox took it. Neither of them spoke until they came to a stop beside the wine-colored shopping-car.
“I never intend to speak to Gerry West again as long as I live,” announced Teddie, with a combined suddenness and fierceness which made her Uncle Chandler forget his left hip-joint as he climbed into the car beside her.
He patted her knee, comprehendingly.
“Under the circumstances, then,” he observed as she made the motor whine with an altogether unnecessary jab on the accelerator, “it’ll be just as well, Teddikins, if you don’t see him for a week or two!” . . .