As all the world knows, sentiment has no place in business, yet for sentimental reasons solely Mr. Cone had to date refused to rent to strangers the rooms occupied for so many winters by the same persons. Ordinarily, it was so well understood between them that they would return and occupy their usual quarters that he reserved their rooms as a matter of course and they notified him only when something occurred to change their plans or detain them. But this winter, owing to the circumstances in which they had parted, his common sense told him that if they intended to return to the Magnolia House they would have so informed him.
Nevertheless, so strong were the ties of friendship that Mr. Cone determined to give them forty-eight hours longer, and if by then he had no word from them, of course there was nothing to think but that the one-time pleasant relations were ended forever.
There were strangers aplenty, the "newcomers" had arrived, and Miss Mary Macpherson, but he wanted to see Henry Appel sitting on his veranda, and Mrs. Budlong and "C. D.," and Miss Mattie Gaskett—in fact, he missed one not more than another.
What did it matter, after all, he reflected, if "Cutie" had kittens in the linen closet, and that Mrs. Appel used the hotel soap to do her laundry? As Mr. Cone looked off across the blue waters of the Gulf, which he could see through the wide open doorway, he wished with all his heart that he had not "flown off the handle."
The Happy Family had been friends as well as patrons, and without friends what did life amount to? The hotel was full of new people, but in spite of his professional affability Mr. Cone was not one to "cotton" to everybody, and it would be a long time, he told himself sadly, before these old friends could be replaced in his affections.
He would have listened gladly to the story of how Mr. Appel got his start in life; he was hungry for the sight of Mrs. C. D. Budlong sitting like a potted oleander; he would have welcomed——
Mr. Cone's generous ears seemed suddenly to quiver, almost they went forward like those of a startled burro. A voice—obstinate, cantankerous—a voice that could belong to no one on earth but old Mr. Penrose, was engaged outside in a wrangle with a taxi-cab driver!
Before Mr. Cone could get around the desk and at the door to greet him, Mr. Penrose was striding across the office with the porter behind him, round-shouldered under the weight of two portmanteaux and a bag of golf clubs.
Mr. Penrose was the same, yet different in an elusive way that Mr. Cone could not define exactly. There was an air about him which on the spur of the moment he might have called "brigandish"—the way he wore his hat, a slight swagger, a something lawless that surely he never had acquired in his peach orchard in Delaware. When Mr. Penrose extended his hand across the counter Mr. Cone noticed that he was wearing a leather bracelet.
As they greeted each other like reunited brothers there was nothing in the manner of either to indicate that they had parted on any but the happiest terms, though Mr. Penrose's gaze wavered for an instant when he asked: