ROBERT CHANDLESS, Secretary.
The only words in longhand were the two forming the name of the secretary. Presbury laughed and tossed the note across the breakfast table to his wife. "You see what an ignorant creature he is," said he. "He imagines he has done the thing up in grand style. He's the sort of man that can't be taught manners because he thinks manners, the ordinary civilities, are for the lower orders of people. Oh, he's a joke, is Bill Siddall—a horrible joke."
Mrs. Presbury read and passed the letter to Mildred. She simply glanced at it and returned it to her step-father.
"I'm just about over that last dinner," pursued Presbury. "I'll eat little Thursday and drink less. And I'd advise you to do the same, Mrs. Presbury."
He always addressed her as "Mrs. Presbury" because he had discovered that when so addressed she always winced, and, if he put a certain tone into his voice, she quivered.
"That dinner aged you five years," he went on. "Besides, you drank so much that it went to your head and made you slather him with flatteries that irritated him. He thought you were a fool, and no one is stupid enough to like to be flattered by a fool."
Mrs. Presbury bridled, swallowed hard, said mildly: "We'll have to spend the night in town again, I suppose."
"You and your daughter may do as you like," said Presbury. "I shall return here that night. I always catch cold in strange beds."
"We might as well all return here," said Mildred. "I shall not wear evening dress; that is, I'll wear a high-neck dress and a hat."
She had just got a new hat that was peculiarly becoming to her. She had shown Siddall herself at the best in evening attire; another sort of costume would give him a different view of her looks, one which she flattered herself was not less attractive. But Presbury interposed an emphatic veto.