I must be sufficiently unlady-like to give Mr. Grainger's response just as it was spoken, because it strikes me as characteristic of men.
"Oh, hell! Get in. You're coming with me."
Characteristic of men was the rest of the evening. In spite of what had happened—and had not happened—Messrs. Grainger and Strangways partook of an excellent supper together, eating and drinking with appetite, and smoking their cigars with what looked like an air of tranquillity. Though the fury of the balked wild animal returned to Stacy Grainger by fits and starts, it didn't interfere with his relish of his food and only once did it break its bounds. That was when he struck the arm of his chair, saying beneath his breath, and yet audibly enough for his secretary to hear:
"She funked it—damn her!"
Larry Strangways then took it on himself to say:
"I don't know the lady, sir, to whom you refer, nor the reasons she may have had for funking it, but may I advise you for your own peace of mind to withdraw the two concluding syllables?"
A pair of fierce, melancholy eyes rested on him for a second uncomprehendingly.
"All right," the crestfallen lover groaned heavily at last. "I may as well take them back."
Characteristic of women were my experiences while this was happening.
Bundled out into the station at Providence no two poor females could ever have been more forlorn. Standing in the waiting-room with our bags around us I felt like one of those immigrant women, ignorant of the customs and language of the country to which they have come, I had sometimes seen on docks at Halifax. As for Mrs. Brokenshire, she was as little used to the unarranged as if she had been a royalty. Never before had she dropped in this way down upon the unexpected; never before had she been unmet, unwelcomed, and unprepared. She was bouleversée—overturned. Were she falling from an aeroplane she could not have been more at a loss as to where she was going to alight. Small wonder was it that she should sit down on one of her own valises and begin to cry distressfully.