But York still smiled, although the whites of his eyes took on a strange yellow tinge. "I regret that I do not possess the gift," he said, with a little bow, "of making suitable tu quoque to cave-men."
Whereupon Franklin burst into a laugh, turned and went out.
The pale man flung his magazine away. He resented being done out of legitimate excitement.
"A curiously uncivilized person," said York, putting a shaky hand up to his vivid tie. "Come to lunch, my dear fellow."
"Thanks, no; I'm lunching at the Biltmore," said the pale man, shortly.
It was when the portrait painter found himself alone that the veneer fell from him like the silver paper from a cheap cigar. His face swelled and grew red. "Curse these two autocrats," he cried inwardly. "I owed her something. Now he's added to the debt. Married, are they? By God, we'll see about that. Scandal? Ah, that's where I come in."
Franklin drove home, and gave his goggles to the chauffeur.
"Keep the car here," he said. "I shall probably want her again. But come up and get something to eat."
It was something to drink that O'Connor wanted, but he showed his excellent teeth in appreciation of the thought and made things ship-shape.
The over-uniformed elevator man in the hall of the apartment-house, which couldn't have been more pompous and imposing if it had been that of an embassy or a moving-picture palace, gave an exclamation of surprise at the sight of Franklin. "Didn't expect to see you here, sir," he said, with that nice touch of deferential camaraderie that is characteristic of all elevator men in apartment houses where rents are so prohibitive that they can boast of a waiting list.