“You don’t think your daughter is—is interested in Mr Bates?”
“I know she is not! Dorcas is a wayward-tempered child, but she is loyal to her mother and her mother’s wishes. She wouldn’t dream of seeing Richard Bates against my will.”
Now, as it happened at that very moment, the loyal child was apparently quite oblivious of the wishes of her beloved mother, for she was sitting by the side of the objurgated Richard on a bench in Central Park.
When told to leave the room by her mother, she had also left the Everett apartment, and later, the house.
By some discreet telephoning she had summoned the despised young man and the two had sauntered out of The Campanile, separately, and joined company soon after.
“It’s a risk,” Dorcas was saying, “and if mother, catches on, she’ll give me Hail Columbia, but I just had to see you! Do you know what they’re saying about your uncle’s murder, now?”
“No; and I don’t want to hear from you. Please, dear, let’s leave all that horror out of our conversation. We get so few moments together and I need every one of them to tell you how I love you.”
“Then,” the red lips pouted, “when am I to tell you how much I love you?”
“Oh, Dork! you do say the sweetest things! Tell me, darling, tell me, first, then I’ll tell you——”
“We may as well both talk at once,” Dorcas laughed. “We can say the same things,—it’ll really be a duet!”