“Oh, no,” he said. “That wouldn’t do. I’ll be in New York a few weeks now, at the Excelsior. I’ll see you often,—and Patty when I may,—but I won’t stay here, thanks. I’m so happy to have been of service, and always command me, of course.”
Farnsworth bowed and went off, and the two Fairfields looked at each other.
“What an episode!” exclaimed Nan. “Did he really save her life, Fred?”
“He probably did. We can never say for certain, but at that crisis, a natural sleep is a Godsend. He induced it, whether by a kind of mesmerism, or whether because Patty cares so much for him, I can’t say. I hate to think the latter——”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, you know that story Van Reypen tells, about Farnsworth trying to get Patty to go on the operatic stage——”
“I never was sure about that—we didn’t hear it so very straight.”
“Well, and Farnsworth is not altogether of—of our own sort——”
“You mean, not the aristocrat Phil is?”
“Something like that.”