“You meant well,” said Tab, flopping into a chair, “and I know of no worse thing that you can say about a man than that he ‘meant well!’ But it isn’t true. She’s not going to be married. Where did you get hold of this story, Baby?”
“I heard it,” said the other vaguely.
He was a boyish looking young man with a pink and white complexion. His face was so round and cherubic that the appellation of ‘baby’ had good excuse, for he was plump of person and lazy of habit. They had been school fellows and when Rex had come to town at the command of his one relative, his uncle, the sour Mr. Jesse Trasmere, to take up a torturous training as an architect, these two had gravitated together and now shared Tab’s small flat.
“What do you think of her?”
Tab thought before replying.
“She’s certainly handicapped with good looks,” he said cautiously. At another time he would have added a word of disparagement or would have spoken jokingly of Rex Lander’s intense interest in the lady, but now, for some reason, he treated the other’s enquiry with more seriousness than was his wont.
Ursula Ardfern stood for the one consistently successful woman management in town. Despite her youth she had chosen and cast her own plays and in four seasons had not known the meaning of the word failure.
“She’s quite charming,” Tab said. “Of course, I felt a fool; interviewing actresses is off my beat anyway. Who is the letter from?” He glanced up at the envelope propped on the mantelpiece.
“From Uncle Jesse,” said the other without looking up from his book. “I wrote to him, asking him if he would lend me fifty.”
“And he said?— I saw him today, by-the-way.”