"We were just now discussing it," Harvey Grimm assented.
The poet sat down, made signs to the waiter, hitched up his trousers and made himself thoroughly comfortable.
"I have decided," he announced, "that I am the proper person to entertain the young lady."
Harvey Grimm nodded thoughtfully.
"Tell us through what channel of thought, my young friend, you have arrived at that conclusion?" he begged.
The poet straightened his tie. There was no doubt that he was a remarkably good-looking young man.
"I am a modest person," he said, "but it is useless to deny that nature has been kind to me. Then, too, there is a peculiar and romantic importance attached to the successful poet whose reputation has been enhanced in so singular a fashion. The young lady will be interested in me from the start. She will be proud to remember that we are old acquaintances, and she will treat me with greater confidence than any ordinary person."
Harvey Grimm lit a cigarette deliberately. Aaron Rodd's heavy eyebrows seemed to have contracted a little.
"Why are you so sure that it will be the young lady who will keep the appointment?" the former enquired.
Stephen Cresswell placed his forefinger upon the advertisement in the paper which he had been carrying:—