Anne was more interested. Since the passing of Harrison Crisp’s car she had been leaning back in her long chair, but now she sat upright and looked frowningly at her caller.
“ ‘Invited you to join?’ ” she said. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she invited me to get on the bandwagon,” he explained. “Not right up on a front seat, of course; but anyhow I was given a ticket to hang on behind somewhere.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Probably you don’t,” Hobart said, and he looked thoughtful. “You’re always so above the crowd, Anne, probably you wouldn’t understand Miss Ealing’s invitations. You see I’m in a pretty good position to see things that you wouldn’t, so to speak. Of course, strangers never pay any attention to the little shrimps in a crowd, and when Miss Ealing did pay me a slight attention I wasn’t so grateful as I should have been;—I thought it was pretty funny.”
“ ‘Funny’!” Anne exclaimed. “Why?”
“Because it only showed her up, you see. Of course, it didn’t mean she had any interest in me; it only meant she had a use for me. She already had most of the rest of ’em excited about her; but she’s a real collector and she wanted the whole collection—even me! You see, the girl that makes ’em all think she’s thinking about them isn’t thinking about any of ’em, of course. She’s only thinking about herself, like any other selfish little brute.”
“Hobart!”
“Of course, I don’t mean to say she gave me a pressing invitation to join,” he explained, laughing cheerfully at himself. “Naturally, that couldn’t be expected. The big, hand-painted, gilt-edged card was for Harrison Crisp, of course; and then there were a number of handsomely engraved ones for tall eligibles. She just slipped me a little one printed on soft paper—a sort of handbill, you know, when she was delivering ’em around to the residue.”
Anne’s languor had vanished now. She stared at him incredulously. “Hobart Simms,” she cried, “what do you mean by ‘handbills’?”