“Yes,” he said.
I shook hands with him again.
“You are a very remarkable young man,” I said. “You respect your mother’s wishes and you don’t like rouged girls. I most cordially hope you will succeed in the egg market. But as for Rose, I can tell you something. Rose is in love with nobody.”
“How can you tell?” he asked.
“I happen to know her fairly well,” I replied, “and to have kept her under a certain amount of observation.”
“But—but—”
“You mean, once more, that I am too old? Maybe; but I guess that on this particular subject I am right. I’ll tell her that you called. Good afternoon.”
“Oh, sir,” he said, “will you? Wouldn’t it be better to say nothing about it and let me see her first?”
“It might be,” I replied; “but that isn’t the way that Miss Holt and I do things. We put the cards on the table. Good afternoon.”
He walked moodily to his little runabout, cranked it, lighted another cigarette (although what use a cigarette can be in a thirty-mile gale such as he was about to create for himself, I have no notion) and was off.