“Go!” said Mr. Balch hollowly. “Go at once,” he added, as if a closer look at the youth’s face had impressed on him the need of backing up his friend.
Young Rainer had turned ashy-pale. He tried to stiffen his mouth into a smile. “Do I look as bad as all that?”
Mr. Grisben was helping himself to terrapin. “You look like the day after an earthquake,” he said.
The terrapin had encircled the table, and been deliberately enjoyed by Mr. Lavington’s three visitors (Rainer, Faxon noticed, left his plate untouched) before the door was thrown open to re-admit their host. Mr. Lavington advanced with an air of recovered composure. He seated himself, picked up his napkin and consulted the gold-monogrammed menu. “No, don’t bring back the filet.... Some terrapin; yes....” He looked affably about the table. “Sorry to have deserted you, but the storm has played the deuce with the wires, and I had to wait a long time before I could get a good connection. It must be blowing up for a blizzard.”
“Uncle Jack,” young Rainer broke out, “Mr. Grisben’s been lecturing me.”
Mr. Lavington was helping himself to terrapin. “Ah—what about?”
“He thinks I ought to have given New Mexico a show.”
“I want him to go straight out to my nephew at Santa Paz and stay there till his next birthday.” Mr. Lavington signed to the butler to hand the terrapin to Mr. Grisben, who, as he took a second helping, addressed himself again to Rainer. “Jim’s in New York now, and going back the day after tomorrow in Olyphant’s private car. I’ll ask Olyphant to squeeze you in if you’ll go. And when you’ve been out there a week or two, in the saddle all day and sleeping nine hours a night, I suspect you won’t think much of the doctor who prescribed New York.”
Faxon spoke up, he knew not why. “I was out there once: it’s a splendid life. I saw a fellow—oh, a really bad case—who’d been simply made over by it.”
“It does sound jolly,” Rainer laughed, a sudden eagerness in his tone.