“You mustn’t get nasty, dar-rling. You know that I’m almost never, except to punish people. And of course Mr. Pape and I haven’t got far enough along for me to need to punish him—not yet.”
Although nothing seemed to be expected of him, Pape sought for a seemly retort. “Let us hope that we never get that far along.”
“Let us hope that we get there soon,” she corrected him. “Come, shan’t we be on our way?”
Mrs. Sturgis followed them to the street door; showed a becoming anxiety; hoped, even prayed, that they’d return safely.
“Safely and anon—don’t expect me sooner than anon.”
Irene tossed the promise with a finger-flung kiss from the saddle into which she had swung with scarcely a foot-touch upon the stirrup held for her. Pape instructed the groom as to his return to stables on the other side of the park. They were off on the most parade-effect ride in which he, for one, ever had participated.
The girl pulled in close enough to keep talking during their necessarily sedate pace down the avenue toward The Plaza entrance to the park.
“You were a dear to keep calling up while I was in the country. Oh, don’t look so innocent!”
Her charge made him hope he wasn’t showing in his face the strange something that happened to his spinal column each time she called him “dear”—he felt so sure that she only was leading up to that adorably Yankee-ized “dar-rling” of hers.
“I’m sorry if I—glad if I look innocent.”