“I believe you’ve had some to-night,” she remarked dryly. “Something has made you unusually bright.”
“I’ve had a thimbleful, I confess.”
“And you have the nerve to come over here to a perfectly dry house without bringing some with you!”
“How stupid of me,” he smiled, slyly. “I thought drinking was one of your pet aversions—”
“So it is; but I—”
“I almost hesitated to come on that account,” he interrupted. “Bill Squires told me I was ‘canned,’ and Betty Doran told me I was disqualified for polite society. They’re over home, there, now, discussing the New York theatre season with the mater. She landed in to-day with a raft of new jazz stuff and a confounded jumping-jack that won’t jump. Some beggar on Bryant Square stuck her a quarter for it. Did I understand you to say, Freda, that you would like a drink?”
Courtney produced a bottle from his coat pocket and set it on the table near him.
“I didn’t bring any glasses,” he ventured.
“Never mind,” she said, rising. “That part is easy. I think a drink will do me good this evening. I’ve been half sick all day.”
The comfort that Freda derived from both Courtney and the spirits was very meagre. He rambled on lightly for a time, glass in hand, explaining how bored he had become with Lockwood, and what a necessity existed for some excitement or other.