“Certainly,” replied Miss Asheton. “It’s a man who thinks he’s a little wiser than other men, and who is, in fact——” she hesitated politely, “—who may be mistaken.”
“It’s a man,” savagely supplemented Mr. Burrow, “who’s such a blank-dashed fool that he glories in his folly! Until ten minutes ago I was one of them.”
Miss Asheton said nothing. It occurred to the Honorable Alexander that she might be thinking of Lewis Copewell. The thought filled him with hot indignation. Who was Lewis Copewell that a goddess, playing truant from Olympus, should trouble her decorative head about him? Thinking of the decorative head, Mr. Burrow turned in his seat to contemplate it. The car veered into the ditch but without casualty. Houses sit along Jaffa Junction’s thoroughfares as Chinese beads are strung—at extended intervals. Illumination is yet in the future. The ways are dark.
Besides, ran Mr. Burrow’s train of thought, if Lewis Copewell wanted her, why wasn’t he on hand to claim her? If he, the Honorable Alexander Hamilton Burrow, was to be dragged scores of miles to act as a human dead-letter office for unclaimed girls, surely he was justified in taking possession in his own distinguished person. The circumstances emancipated him from any Quixotic ideas of loyalty to Lewis Copewell. He turned again to the passenger in the tonneau.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll ditch your car if you keep turning around?” quietly inquired Miss Asheton.
“It’s quite probable,” acknowledged Mr. Burrow. “Perhaps it would be safer for you to sit in front. I’m effervescing with repartee—scintillating with epigram. You need to be amused. It will take your thoughts off of your temporary annoyances and prevent brooding. Brooding is bad.”
“Possibly even that wouldn’t distract my mind,” she ventured.
“Then run the car,” suggested the Honorable Alexander, surrendering his place. “The more you have to do just now, the better for you. The less I have to do, the better I can talk.”
Miss Asheton took the wheel.
The arrangement gave Mr. Burrow the opportunity to study her profile as she watched the road. It occurred to Mr. Burrow that he had hitherto lost much out of life by neglecting to study profiles. Then came the realization that after all this was the only profile in the world.