Both ladies looked round at him over their shoulders, Mildred piteously, but Anne sternly. “There’s one great trouble with an unflagging humour,” Mrs. Simms said. “It never flags.”
“Dear me!” he exclaimed. “If Mildred thinks poor old John and Julietta—— Mildred, you don’t for one minute honestly and truly——”
But Mildred made a gesture of agonized entreaty. “Please! Please!” she said in a low voice. “They’re coming!”
A peal of light laughter was heard from the darkness, and the figures of the two delaying players became visible within the outer reaches of the clubhouse lights. They were walking slowly, engaged in obviously cheerful conversation, and from the shoulders of the stalwart Tower were slung both bags containing the implements used in the game they had been playing. It was characteristic and like old John’s punctilious gallantry, his brother-in-law thought, to have seized upon both those bags the moment the caddies were dismissed. Miss Voss, almost as tall as he, was more than equal to carrying her own bag without effort.
She had the figure of a distance runner in training, lithe, hard, and active; and there was something lively, yet hard, too, in her tanned long face, which was a handsome face in spite of its length. But her eyes were what was most noticeable about her, for they were beautiful. They were brilliantly dark, and at times seemed to hold little dancing lights within them, as if they gave glimpses of secret laughter. All in all, she was a cheery companion for an outdoor afternoon, but by no manner of means a tricky witch, Mr. Hobart Simms decided, as he looked down smilingly upon her and upon that odd man, his brother-in-law and junior partner, old John Tower.
“Old John,” of an age not more than Hobart’s, was queer, Hobart thought; but his queerness did not alter the simple steadiness of character that made his intimates think and speak of him as “old John.” Moreover, his oddity lay mainly in his literal, simple truthfulness under all conditions, in his belief that others were as truthful as himself, and in an indefatigable formal politeness of manner, sometimes a little stately, that was really the expression of a kind heart.
The two came gaily up the steps, still laughing at something said out of hearing from the veranda, and Julietta gave a final fillip to their joke by reeling against her companion as they reached the top step. She steadied herself by clutching his shoulder, and seemed almost to hang upon him, for a moment or two, while she chid him. “Don’t make me laugh any more, or I’ll give you up as a partner and absolutely not play with you again to-morrow!” Then she turned briskly to Mildred. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long for your poor abducted husband, Mrs. Tower. I’m afraid he’s the kind of man who never gives up anything he sets out to do, even when he has to finish it in the dark. I suppose that’s why he’s a great man.”
“Do you think he’s a great man, Julietta?” Hobart Simms inquired in a carefully naïve manner.
“Everyone knows he is,” Julietta returned. “Of course you’re a great man, John, since Hobart asks me!”
“At least, it’s most lovely of you to say you think so,” Mr. Tower responded, bowing his dark head before her gratefully. “I’m only a feeble assistant to Hobart here, who really is a great man; but it’s charming of you to say I’m one, too. Really it’s most kind of you, Julietta.” He turned to his wife. “My dear, I hope you haven’t been waiting long, and I hope, if you have, you haven’t minded.”