"Oh, I don't mean here. I mean out West."
For a moment Loftus said nothing. Even in the West, he reflected, divorce took time. Yet then, reflecting, too, that it would be very gentlemanly of Annandale were he to go there and leave the coast free for him, he smiled and remarked, with what seemed astounding inappositeness, "I have been selling short."
"Ah!" said Fanny longly. "And what of it?"
"Unless the market turns I shall be out, God knows how much!"
"But what of it?" Yet even as she spoke she understood. "Fiddlesticks!" she exclaimed with a gesture of annoyance. "I sha'n't care if you haven't two cents."
To this Loftus had no chance to reply. Annandale came lounging in.
"Do you know what I have done?" he collectively and blandly inquired. "I told Skitt to buy me, at the opening, 1,000 Atchison and 1,000 Steel. Now I would like a quiet drink."
Loftus stood up. "I am going in the Park for a quiet smoke. But I thought you had sworn off."
Annandale tugged at his cavalry mustache and laughed. "I haven't touched a thing for nearly a year. But on a night like this, when the whole town is mad, I think I might have a drop. Stop, dear boy, won't you, and have one with me? No? Well—" And, accompanying Loftus to the door, he whispered to him there, "My compliments to Miss Leroy."
"Don't forget, Royal," Fanny called after him, "that you dine with us on the ninth."