"I'll take care of her, Morris, never fear," said Wyck, smiling.
Reg looked from one to the other. He felt helpless, and in a predicament from which only a scene, which he abhorred, would extricate him. It was galling in the extreme to find a total stranger dictating to the girl he was engaged to.
"Then you won't come?" he asked.
"Not yet, Reg," she replied, in a languid manner, and he turned sharply on his heel and descended the stairs in a mood the reverse of amiable. Here he ran against Tommy, whom he stopped and asked:
"Who's your friend Wyckliffe, Thomas?"
"Oh, old Wyck is a great friend of mine. Why do you ask? You don't look well, old chap. Come and have something to pull you together."
"No thanks. Look here, Thomas, I don't like the way your friend is going on."
"Why, what's he done?" asked Tommy, in feigned surprise, though he was rather enjoying the joke of badgering the jealous lover.
"Miss Johnson is an innocent girl, not up to the free-and-easy flirting ways of your Society friends, and she should not be compromised by sitting out three dances with a stranger."
"Come, old chap. You make too much fuss over a small matter. But look, there is Mrs. Whyte beckoning to you," said he, pointing to the lady in question, who was anxiously watching them. "I won't keep you."